bargaigner

Old French bargaigner meant to haggle, to trade, to negotiate. It likely came from Frankish *borganjan (to borrow, to lend), related to Old High German borgen (to borrow) and modern German borgen (to lend). The shift from borrowing to bargaining happened because both involve negotiation: the terms of a loan and the terms of a sale require the same kind of back-and-forth. The word entered English by the fourteenth century as bargain, meaning both the negotiation process and the agreement reached.

Medieval English markets were sites of constant bargaining. Fixed prices were rare. Every transaction was a negotiation between seller and buyer, and the bargain was the outcome — the agreed-upon terms. The word carried no implication of cheapness. A bargain was not necessarily a good deal; it was any deal. 'To strike a bargain' meant to reach an agreement, whether the terms favored you or not.

The shift toward 'bargain' meaning 'a good deal' happened gradually. By the seventeenth century, the phrase 'a great bargain' implied favorable terms. By the nineteenth century, 'bargain' alone could mean a favorable price. Bargain bins, bargain basements, and bargain hunters all emerged in the age of department stores. The word narrowed from 'any negotiated agreement' to 'an agreement where the buyer got a good price.'

Modern bargain has almost completely lost its negotiation sense. A 'bargain' at Target is not negotiated — it is a price set by the store and accepted by the buyer. The word that once named a process now names a result. Bargain hunting requires no actual haggling. The Frankish borrower who negotiated terms with a lender would not recognize a clearance rack as his linguistic descendant.