emporium
Americannoun
plural
emporiums, emporia-
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
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.
Whitehouse added: "Bye bye Ted old friend. He wasn't a dog; he was a species all of his own. He's gone to the great briefcase emporium in the sky. We will really miss you mate."
From BBC • Apr. 30, 2026
“Bread of Angels” does take readers to March 9, 1976, the night Smith met the love of her life, standing next to a radiator in a hot dog emporium in downtown Detroit.
From Salon • Nov. 11, 2025
She began to lean into her carefully curated emporium as the vivacious backdrop it is.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 9, 2025
“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
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
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.
