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:
"Fuel is traded in an international marketplace, meaning disruptions to supply, production, or distribution anywhere in the world can have a direct effect on local wholesale costs."
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
In 2011, two other sites emerged: Poshmark, with a peer-to-peer marketplace, and the RealReal, focused on luxury items and authentication services.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
Schick revolutionized shaving with injector razors and multiblades in a single cartridge, slugging it out in the marketplace for decades with rival shaving giant Gillette.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 16, 2026
“And we didn’t want to be viewed as high price in the marketplace and they get that mindset and don’t come back and shop with us.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
He had fallen asleep in the middle of the marketplace, and life in the plaza was about to resume.
From "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho
“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
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 the marketplaces you basically only find pangolin scales, not the whole animals, which makes it hard to know which species are being hunted and where they are coming from," says Feijó.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
Many of those listed on online marketplaces are larger and more custom than Cash App’s Tags, making for an arguably more sensational payment experience.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 22, 2026
Along with the crops, they were useful commodities in the marketplaces of each city in the trade networks initially established by the Toltecs.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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.
