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:
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
Later, as the marketplace wound down, Trump Jr. “worked to help the company close and maintain material relationships in payment processing and our other fintech offerings,” Kent said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Hyde Lane has “been forced to surrender control over its commercial identity simply because Defendants have greater resources and a larger marketplace footprint,” the lawsuit states.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
Infante sees that selectiveness reflected in the marketplace.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
According to one tradition, when the philosopher Protagoras was convicted on charges of heresy, his books were dumped in the city marketplace and burned.
From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro
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
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
To date, most of these popular peptides have been available solely in unregulated online marketplaces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
But it has also frustrated hundreds of Russian sellers who depend on online marketplaces for their livelihoods, making the war feel closer to home after almost four and a half years.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
In recent years, economists have spent a great deal of time studying Mavens, for the obvious reason that if marketplaces depend on information, the people with the most information must be the most important.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
