What does vare mean?
Vare is an obsolete noun denoting a unit of weight formerly used in India, especially in the trade in pepper, spices, and other commodities. The English word entered European commercial language through Portuguese usage during the Indian Ocean trade. Its exact weight was not fixed in the way modern units are: different ports, commodities, and local systems could assign different values to a vare, so historical records may require contextual comparison before conversion. Today the term survives mainly in specialized dictionaries, historical accounts, and descriptions of early modern trade rather than everyday speech. It should not be confused with ware, meaning goods or merchandise, although the two words can sound similar in some pronunciations. For readers of older commercial documents, recognizing vare is useful because it identifies a measure rather than the goods being weighed, and it can clarify how merchants described prices, taxes, and cargoes.
nounAn obsolete unit of weight formerly used in India, particularly in the trade in pepper, spices, and other commodities. Its value could vary according to location and commodity.
- A historical Indian unit of weight used in commerce, especially for pepper, spices, and other traded goods.
"The merchant weighed the pepper by the vare before arranging its sale."
"The cargo was valued according to the number of vares of pepper it contained."
"Accounts from the trading port record payment by the vare."
The plural is rarely encountered because the word itself belongs to historical commercial usage.
"The merchant received three vares of pepper."
Before the kilogram, pepper and precious cargoes crossing the Indian Ocean trade were weighed in vares.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of vare
The English word vare was borrowed from Portuguese vara, a term meaning a rod or unit of measure that was used in the Indian trade. Portuguese vara in this commercial sense came through Malayalam vara, a term for a unit of weight, and is generally traced further to Tamil varam, meaning weight or quantity. The measure was used in regional trading systems, so its precise value was not always uniform.
How vare is actually used
This is an archaic commercial term rather than part of standard modern English. It occurs chiefly in historical records and specialized references to the Indian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean trade, and its numerical value was not uniform across places and commodities.
Easily confused with vare
Var is an alternative English spelling of the same obsolete Indian unit of weight.
Vare is a historical unit of weight, whereas ware means goods or merchandise.