marketplace

/ˌmɑrkətˈpleɪs/

/ˈmɑkɪtpleɪs/

Other forms: marketplaces

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!

Definitions of marketplace

1. noun

   an area in a town where a public mercantile establishment is set up
   synonyms: market, market place, mart

   types:

   agora, public square

   a place of assembly for the people in ancient Greece

   bazaar, bazar

   a street of small shops, especially in the Middle East

   food market, grocery, grocery store, market

   a marketplace where groceries are sold

   market square, open-air market, open-air marketplace

   a public marketplace where food and merchandise is sold

   slave market

   a marketplace where slaves were auctioned off (especially in the southern United States before the American Civil War)

   agora

   the marketplace in ancient Greece

   farmer's market, green market, greenmarket

   an open-air marketplace for farm products

   greengrocery

   a greengrocer's grocery store

   souk

   an open-air market in an Arabian city

   supermarket

   a large self-service grocery store selling groceries and dairy products and household goods

   flea market

   an open-air street market for inexpensive or secondhand articles

   type of:

   mercantile establishment, outlet, retail store, sales outlet

   a place of business for retailing goods
2. noun

   the world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold
   “they were driven from the marketplace”

   synonyms: market, market place

   types:

   black market

   an illegal market in which goods or currencies are bought and sold in violation of rationing or controls

   buyer's market, buyers' market, soft market

   a market in which more people want to sell than want to buy

   gray market, grey market

   an unofficial market in which goods are bought and sold at prices lower than the official price set by a regulatory agency

   seller's market, sellers' market

   a market in which more people want to buy than want to sell

   labor market

   the market in which workers compete for jobs and employers compete for workers

   monopoly

   (economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller

   monopsony

   (economics) a market in which goods or services are offered by several sellers but there is only one buyer

   oligopoly

   (economics) a market in which control over the supply of a commodity is in the hands of a small number of producers and each one can influence prices and affect competitors

   corner

   a temporary monopoly on a kind of commercial trade

   type of:

   activity

   any specific behavior