Barter=Haggle?!
Hi,
The Oxford Thesaurus Dictionary mentions "Haggle" as synonymous with "Barter". Is it something that I don't understand, or is it an error? Because I looked up my descriptive dictionaries and all I found was that "Barter" means trading a good or service with another one in the absence of a medium of exchange like money. Maybe we could say that if someone barters a good with another one having less essential value is actually deviously haggling, but I don't think this would be the case here.
Please remind me of thing(s) that I failed to take into account.
Thank you.
Top answer
In American English (Oxford is a British publication) these are only synonymous in the most tenuous way, for example: I was unable to haggle a better price for the vase from the street vendor, but I was able to barter for it with something I had bought from another vendor.
- In American English (Oxford is a British publication) these are only synonymous in the most tenuous way, for example: I was unable to haggle a better price for the vase from the street vendor, but I was able to barter for it with something I had bought from another vendor.
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In American English (Oxford is a British publication) these are only synonymous in the most tenuous way, for example:
I was unable to haggle a better price for the vase from the street vendor, but I was able to barter for it with something I had bought from another vendor.
0Based on the information you gave, in the UK, the sentences, "I tried to haggle a better price with the vendor." and "I tried to barter a better price with the vendor." apparently mean the same thing, while in the US, the second sentence is ungrammatical.
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