emporium
Americannoun
-
a large retail store, especially one selling a great variety of articles.
- Synonyms:
- bazaar, marketplace, market
-
a place, town, or city of important commerce, especially a principal center of trade.
New York is one of the world's great emporiums.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of emporium
First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin, from Greek empórion “market, emporium,” equivalent to émporos “merchant,” originally “traveler, passenger” ( em- em- 2 + póros “passage, voyage”) + -ion noun suffix of place
Explanation
An emporium is a large store that sells a variety of merchandise. You can call a department store, with its many different departments, an emporium. Any retail store that separates its goods into different areas — like "men's hats" and "kids' shoes" and "household goods" — can be called an emporium. Almost every small city in the United States used to have at least one emporium on its main street, although today you might refer to a big box store or a shopping mall as an emporium. Emporium is a Latin word, rooted in the Greek emporion, "trading place or market," from emporos, "merchant or traveler."
Vocabulary lists containing emporium
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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:
He added that it will remain in the emporium until the end of September so the public can see it.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
“For whatever is grown and made among each people cannot fail to be here at all times and in abundance,” he wrote, “so that the city appears a kind of common emporium of the world.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2025
Have you ever wanted to put a little action on a game of skee-ball at an iconic arcade emporium with locations all over the country?
From Slate ● May 1, 2024
But Dinello had gotten a copy of an educational film called “The Trip Back” from Kim’s Video, the legendary East Village emporium known for its collection of obscure titles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2024
Fong See On Company, the art and antiques emporium on Los Angeles Street, had the only storefront with any real visual appeal, in my opinion.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
The rise of contemporary and then streetwear brands reshaped consumer wardrobes and shopping patterns, as elitism was trounced by accessibility, and brick-and-mortar emporia went from being magnetic landmarks to millstones weighing down the bottom line.
From New York Times ● Oct. 15, 2019
Avila Retail has nearly two dozen specialty stores based in airports, including its Earth Spirit folk-art emporia and the awkwardly named Indigenous, which peddles Native American crafts at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
From Slate ● Sep. 7, 2017
As an entrepreneur in her 20s with a Harvard MBA, she rebuffed original investors’ push to call the proposed neighborhood cosmetics emporia Marla’s Beauty Shop or the Beauty Store.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 2016
After cruising the shops and antiques emporia of Bethnal Green, we queue at the bagel shop in Brick Lane and buy five dozen for the freezer.
From Newsweek ● Apr. 12, 2015
You write to one of the great London stores or emporia, asking, let us say, for an umbrella.
From Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
"People are hunting out bargains whether they're found in the sales aisles being well stocked by department stores, or in charity shops or other second-hand emporiums."
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2023
And a lucky few embark on a future across the Pacific in Japan, where beetles are popular as pets, and are even sold over online emporiums such as Amazon.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2022
Next they tried a block of brightly lit jewelry emporiums, but a guard shooed them away.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 23, 2022
“I believe the fundamentals of the state need changing,” Faulconer said over black coffee at one of San Francisco’s designer java emporiums, citing the homelessness, crime and indecent housing costs that plague California.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2021
Perry was well acquainted with the workings of such emporiums, having often patronized them, and happily, since usually he found it “so relaxing” to sit quietly and watch clothes get clean.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
Definitions 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.
