Oh i love a good off-topic talk every now and then
The funny thing is, that definition contradicts itself.. likely because the upper line was taken from financial dictationary and the second half misinterpreted or mistranslated.
But needless to say, that definition is half wrong. Commodity is also a word out of economic teachings, as such.. you should check..
http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Commodity I would be curious to actually know where commodity was first used and in what relation....
I can find no respectable source for this part "A useful or valuable thing, such as water or time."
Most definitions say a
valuable THING or ENTITY. Time is neither. Notice they do not define what valuable is supposed to mean. Wow.. most definition sites for words really do suck.
Commodity has since humans had English language been used to talk about trade goods of economic value. Any new definition i would strongly contest, i never heard anyone call a resource a commodity unless he meant it in economic sense.
I merely find this curious by the way. I don't mean to you know, fight with you over this, i just wanted to look this up and found that .. the internet does not agree with itself what a commodity is or isn't. that means its likely an economc term that merged into normal language without having an actual meaning. So at one point some dictionaries made some up.
Do you know where dictionaries get their word meanings from? Is it from Duden, or some other Insititute? And is it geared towards economics or social sciences? ( I can imagine that would greatly influence the intended meaning of the word "valuable" )