mall

[mawl, mal]

noun

1. Also called shopping mall. a large retail complex containing a variety of stores and often restaurants and other business establishments housed in a series of connected or adjacent buildings or in a single large building.

2. a large area, usually lined with shade trees and shrubbery, used as a public walk or promenade.

3. Chiefly Upstate New York.,  a strip of land, usually planted or paved, separating lanes of opposite traffic on highways, boulevards, etc.

4. the game of pall-mall.

5. the mallet used in the game of pall-mall.

6. the place or alley where pall-mall was played.

mall

/ mɔːl, mæl /

noun

1. a shaded avenue, esp one that is open to the public

2. short for shopping mall

Word History and Origins

Origin of mall¹

1635–45; the Mall, a fashionable tree-lined promenade in 18th-century London, where originally the game pall-mall ( def. ) was played; mell ²

Word History and Origins

Origin of mall¹

C17: after The Mall, in St James's Park, London. See _pall-mall

Example Sentences

Oftentimes, the bus will be at a Radisson on a day off and there’s a mall across the highway.

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After the blaze, the Browns rented an apartment in Chico so their daughter could finish her last year at Paradise High School, which held classes in a mall and then a warehouse in Chico.

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Pro tip: Grab brunch at Beatrix in the same shopping mall before your visit.

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“We do a lot of outreach in the riverbeds, mountains, next to the freeway or near a mall. The second thing we do is search-and-rescue.”

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The suspects eventually broke through and fled to awaiting vehicles in the mall’s valet parking section.

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Related Words

• market 
• plaza 
• shopping center 
• shopping mall