Bazaar

How to spell bazaar

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bazaar

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bazaar mean?

1. nounA market or area of small shops and stalls, especially in the Middle East or South Asia.
2. nounA sale of donated goods held to raise money for a charity, school, or church.

Bazaar in a sentence

• The old bazaar in the city centre sold spices, silk, and copperware.

• The church held a Christmas bazaar to raise funds for the new roof.

• Tourists wandered through the covered bazaar haggling over leather goods.

• Parents donated cakes and books for the school bazaar.

Where does bazaar come from?

Language of origin: Other

The word comes from the Persian bazar, meaning 'market' or a covered place where goods are bought and sold. It travelled westward through Turkish and Italian trade routes before reaching English in the late 1500s, when European merchants encountered the great roofed markets of the Middle East and Central Asia. The original sense was very concrete: a permanent street or quarter lined with stalls and shops, often selling spices, fabrics, and metalwork. Over time English broadened it to cover any cluster of small shops and, later, the charity sale of donated goods held in a church hall or school. A useful spelling note is that bazaar (the market) is constantly confused with its near twin bizarre (meaning strange); they share no origin, since bizarre comes through French and Italian, so it helps to picture the doubled 'a' as two market stalls standing side by side.

How the word is built

• bazaar (from Persian bazar: market, a place of buying and selling)