Other forms: commercials
A commercial is an advertisement broadcast on television or radio. A TV commercial, during the commercials, a thirty-second commercial.
The noun is chiefly American; British speakers usually say advert or ad, and commercial break for the gap they fill. As an adjective it means to do with buying and selling — commercial property, a commercial vehicle — and it means made to sell rather than for its own sake, often as criticism: too commercial, the album was a commercial failure. Note commercially, commercialise and the phrase commercially available, which means you can simply buy it.
1nouncommercialAn advertisement broadcast on television or radio.
“The commercial ran for about three years.”
2adjectivebuyingTo do with buying and selling.
“The building was converted to commercial use.”
3adjectivemainlyMade mainly to sell.
“The second album was more commercial and sold twice as well.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
commercial is an advertisement, or a quality of trade.
Latin commercium is com-, together, plus merx, goods — the same merx behind merchant, market and mercy. A commercial is named for trade, and the broadcast sense is a hundred years old against the word's several hundred.
French
commercial
English, today
commercial
Borrowed from French commercial. From French commercial (“of, or pertaining to commerce”), from Latin commercialis, from Latin commercium. by surface analysis, commerce + -ial.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA