Marketplace
nounA place, physical or virtual, where goods are bought and sold, or the sphere of commercial activity itself.
How to spell marketplace
11 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce marketplace
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does marketplace mean?
- nounA place, physical or virtual, where goods are bought and sold, or the sphere of commercial activity itself.
Marketplace in a sentence
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The town square turns into a busy marketplace every Saturday morning.
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The company struggled to compete in a crowded global marketplace.
Where does marketplace come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This is a compound of two words, 'market' and 'place', both of which trace back to Latin. 'Market' descends from the Latin mercatus, meaning 'trade' or 'a place of trading', built on mercari 'to buy and sell' and ultimately merx 'goods, wares', the same root that gives us 'merchant' and 'commerce'. 'Place' comes from the Latin platea, meaning 'broad street' or 'open space', which itself was borrowed from the Greek plateia 'broad'. English joined the two into 'marketplace' to name the open square or area where buying and selling happened, a usage well established by the 1400s. Over time the word broadened from a literal town square into an abstract sense, as in 'the marketplace of ideas' or the modern online marketplace, while keeping its concrete commercial meaning.
How the word is built
- market (place of trade, from Latin mercatus)
- place (open space, from Latin platea)
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