[f. prec. vb.]
1. The act or practice of trafficking by exchange of commodities; truck.
1592. West, Symbol., B j. § 26. The putting of such thinges in fellowship or barter.
1677. Yarranton, Eng. Improv., 186. In the way of barter, the Pin-Makers may have … Bacon from Shrewsbury for Pins.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, Wks. VIII. 334. Differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter.
1857. Livingstone, Trav., xx. 407. Salt … and calico are the common medium of barter.
2. fig. Exchange, interchange.
1819. Scott, Ivanhoe, xxxii. I will exchange no more cuffs with thee, having been a loser by the barter.
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, ii. (1878), 24. We made our sullen way through the darkness with scarcely one barter of words.
3. Goods to be bartered or traded in by exchange.
1710. Felton, Diss. Classics (1713), 105 (J.). Ladies that change Plate for China: For which … the laudable Traffick of old Cloaths is much the fairest Barter.
1800. Stuart, in Wellesley Disp., 577. Piece goods and grain may be made barter for any quantity of coffee.
4. Arith. The computation of the quantity or value of one commodity, to be given for a known quantity and value of another; the ‘rule’ or method of computing this.
