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:
The suit, Paramount has said, misrepresents the current state of the entertainment industry, particularly because it isn’t considering the streaming marketplace in its evaluation of competition and market share.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
But unlike Amazon, which sells goods directly alongside its marketplace business, Wildberries and Ozon act almost entirely as marketplaces, connecting independent sellers with buyers across Russia, storing and delivering their goods and handling payments.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Ozon is Russia's second-largest online marketplace, with its pick-up points and delivery boxes ubiquitous across the country.
From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026
But Chaplin continued to intentionally make primarily silent films throughout the 1930s, both as a matter of artistic philosophy and in recognition of marketplace realities.
From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2026
His daughter, Jean, sold flower bouquets and loaves of fresh-baked bread in her marketplace stall while she flirted, laughing, with the gangly, self-conscious boys who stopped by.
From "Messenger" by Lois Lowry
By unloading volumes like “Home Long-Term Oxygen Treatment in Italy” and “Marriage Litigation in Medieval England” on third-party marketplaces, he has roughly doubled his revenue from this point in 2025.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 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
Amazon and other online marketplaces created a boom for drop-shippers to mark up products without providing any further value to customers.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026
The deal with Grubhub is part of Serve’s move to expand to new marketplaces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
He described, in his halting way, a city of whitewashed houses and tile roofs, of vines spilling over walls, of busy marketplaces and beautiful gardens.
From "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer
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.
