Madison Avenue

American  

noun

1. a street in New York City that is a center of the advertising and public relations industries and that has become a symbol of their attitudes, methods, and practices.

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Madison Avenue British  

noun

1. a street in New York City: a centre of American advertising and public-relations firms and a symbol of their attitudes and methods

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Madison Avenue Cultural  

1. A street in Manhattan on which many advertising and public relations firms have offices.

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“Madison Avenue hype” carries the connotation of misrepresentation or deliberate dishonesty.

The name of the street is often used to refer to the high-pressure techniques of the advertising business.

Example Sentences

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Madison Avenue

To do so, the design house is refining its strategy—re-entering the market through Nordstrom department stores, opening a retail store on Madison Avenue and investing in a distribution facility in New Jersey.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026

Paul Smith is re-entering Nordstrom and opening a Madison Avenue store, but an analyst sees difficulty standing out.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026

Business owners like Larry Cowit -- who inherited and runs his family's Madison Avenue Furs -- are celebrating a sales spike.

From Barron's ● Apr. 24, 2026

Madison Avenue Furs' Instagram features Cowit's niece posing on the shop's balcony in a variety of plush coats recalling "Sopranos"-esque fashion.

From Barron's ● Apr. 24, 2026

At one of these mutual stops Claudia instructed Jamie to wait for her on the corner of Madison Avenue and 80th Street, for there they would turn left to Fifth Avenue.

From "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg