[f. TRADE sb. + CRAFT sb. in various senses.] † a. A trade-guild. b. Skill or art in connection with a trade or calling. c. The craft or art of trading or dealing.
1810. Combe, Picturesque, xxv. (1865), 370. And this same Hall their trade-craft found To be a sort of neutral ground.
1850. Reynold’s Newspaper, 3 June, 3/2. Baptism, adult or infant, sanctification, regeneration, and reverend grace, with all such terms of your trade-craft, are beginning to be considered by the many only as sounds by which you tickle the ears of the credulous, having no real meaning.
1866. Macm. Mag., Oct., 432. There is tradecraft in literature as well as in painting.
1899. R. Whiteing, No. 5 John St., xxvi. 258. It is a lesson in tradecraft … to see how the girl holds her own with the dealers.
