Plural of brokerage; the fees or commissions charged by brokers, or the businesses that employ brokers to conduct transactions.
From 'broker' + '-age' + '-s' plural suffix. 'Brokerage' itself evolved from 'brokage', with a slight spelling variation that became standard.
Major investment brokerages like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs started as single brokers breaking open wine barrels—it's wild how one medieval job evolved into trillion-dollar institutions.
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