a traveling merchant: a trader or peddler who goes from place to place buying and selling goods
The picture behind this word is a trader on the move. It never stands still as a bare action word in the Bible; it always turns up as the name for the person who does the moving, the merchant or peddler who carries his wares from town to town and drives his bargains wherever he lands.
Its great showcase is the seaport of Tyre in Ezekiel 27, where the traders of nation after nation bring their goods to the world's marketplace. The same word names the merchants of Nineveh, whose numbers are said to rival the stars (Nahum 3:16); the traders Solomon taxed (1 Kings 10:15); the merchants Nehemiah shut out of Jerusalem on the Sabbath (Nehemiah 13:20); and, in a softer key, the merchant whose fragrant powders perfume the air in the Song of Songs.
The word leans toward the smaller trader, the peddler who hawks his wares, often spices and perfumes, from place to place. That sets it a little apart from the larger-scale merchant (סָחַר) and from the Canaanite trader (כְּנַעֲנִי), whose people's name became a byword for trafficking. In practice all three overlap, and English Bibles usually settle on "merchant" for each.