marketplace
Americannoun
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a place where a public market is held
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any centre where ideas, opinions, etc, are exchanged
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the commercial world of buying and selling
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of marketplace
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at market, place
Explanation
A marketplace is a location where people buy goods. When you travel to a new city, you should visit a marketplace to purchase souvenirs for your friends back home. Marketplace often describes an outdoor market where vendors sell produce, meat, crafts, and other goods. Depending where you are, a marketplace might be called a bazaar, a palengke, or a souk. A more general meaning is an economic system or market, or simply the everyday world where things get bought and sold. You should probably test your new lasagna-flavored ice cream in the marketplace to see if anyone will want to buy it!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That’s why we’re cautiously hopeful that after the midterms, Congress will seize the opportunity to make prior authorization and broader insurance marketplace reforms a priority.
From Salon ● Oct. 8, 2026
Galaxy has launched an over-the-counter marketplace for predictions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Either the XLF simply isn’t reflecting the change in steepness yet, or something else is happening in the marketplace.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026
The work featuring the young Black man has disappeared from the marketplace, tucked into a private collection, the auction house says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
Her eyes traveled around the marketplace, looking for some idea of where to go.
From "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu
The bigger point for Airbnb and other marketplaces is that losing control of customer acquisition could mean surrendering some of their pricing power and margins.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
The final version excludes resale marketplaces from the definition of a speculative ticket seller.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026
The alternative is watching competitors or third-party marketplaces become the front door to your ecosystem—and losing the customer relationship before it even starts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
They have also called on the government to crack down on the sale of unsafe e-bikes through online marketplaces and tackle the demand for cheap e-bikes and scooters driven by the gig economy.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
In recent years, economists have spent a great deal of time studying Mavens, for the obvious reason that if marketplaces depend on information, the people with the most information must be the most important.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
