marketplace
Americannoun
-
a place where a public market is held
-
any centre where ideas, opinions, etc, are exchanged
-
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:
Rune Kvist, a former Anthropic employee, is a co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, which has backing from Lloyd’s of London’s insurance marketplace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
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
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
Michael Botta, the co-founder of Sesame Care, an online marketplace that connects patients directly with medical services for cash prices, is one of those customers.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
Uncle Abdullah’s face lit up when he recognized Pa Mustapha, a friend from the marketplace.
From "Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina" by Michaela DePrince
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
“Almost all of the internet marketplaces either have a very large advertising business or plan to build one over time,” said Josh Beck, a tech analyst at Raymond James.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
One of his early successes at Thrive came in 2012 when Kushner launched a health insurer called Oscar that sold coverage directly to individuals in the marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
"And source things from online marketplaces or antique markets for unique pieces that tell a story and make a space feel more lived-in and curated over time."
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 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
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
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.
