emporium
Americannoun
-
emporiums,
plural
-
emporia
plural
-
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:
“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
Deshawn J. Snelson named his high-end sportswear emporium Hype Kingdom for a special reason.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2024
To put it bluntly, our species can’t afford another century of the principles fostered by the Disney emporium.
From Salon ● Dec. 9, 2023
I dreamed last night that you came here to Chicago, and we rode my mule, Whiskey, past Potter Palmer’s emporium and ate fried bread on Lake Street.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
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
Not every community welcomed these hot tub emporia with open bathrobes.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 9, 2015
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
His own emporia faded or failed, but Roberts, who has died aged 70, never lost faith in his medium, and in retirement painted scenes of Kings Road boutiques in the 60s.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 18, 2012
Here commerce first dawned; and little more than two centuries and a half have rolled away since the decayed city ranked among the most opulent emporia of the East.
From The Highlands of Ethiopia by William Cornwallis Harris
Once a fringe fixture of comic-book stores and hobby emporiums, a trading-card game has become a powerhouse in the toy industry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
"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
Its multilane approaches are empty, its vast nearby shopping emporiums deserted.
From New York Times ● Feb. 26, 2023
Today, there are eight used-book emporiums in the Catskills town of fewer than 500 residents.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 19, 2022
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.
