Definition of "commercial enterprise" [commercial enterprise]

• An enterprise connected with commerce (noun)
• The activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "New York originally New Netherlands had begun primarily as a commercial enterprise launched by the Dutch West India Company in 1623; Maryland had been founded in 1632 in part as a refuge for Catholics; Georgia a century later as a repository for convicts and debtors but also as a buffer between South Carolina and the Spanish settlements in Florida."