marketplace

noun

mar·​ket·​place ˈmär-kət-ˌplās 

1

a

: an open square or place in a town where markets or public sales are held

b

: market

the marketplace is the interpreter of supply and demand

2

: the world of trade or economic activity : the everyday world

3

: a sphere in which intangible values compete for acceptance

the marketplace of ideas

Synonyms of marketplace

• commerce
• trade
• traffic

Examples of marketplace in a Sentence

Their products must compete in the marketplace.

The company has struggled to survive in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Recent Examples on the Web

But to help root out the fraud, many community colleges have turned to a growing marketplace of identity verification software vendors. —ABC News, 28 Jan. 2026

For 2026, Kaiser raised premiums 7% for plans purchased through Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace. —Grant Stringer, Mercury News, 27 Jan. 2026

Drbul said that product, brand and marketplace are the elements of when a business is working. —Vicki M. Young, Footwear News, 27 Jan. 2026

Still, this is certainly an emerging marketplace, with many organisations only just waking up to the risk that their reliance on cloud services now represents. —David Prosser, Forbes.com, 27 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Rhymes for marketplace

• aerospace
• anatase
• anyplace
• commonplace
• cyberspace
• database
• diabase
• diastase
• dnase
• elastase
• fireplace
• hyperspace

Kids Definition

marketplace

noun

mar·​ket·​place ˈmär-kət-ˌplās 

1

: an open square or place in a town where markets are held

2

: the world of trade

Legal Definition

marketplace

noun

mar·​ket·​place ˈmär-kət-ˌplās 

: the economic system through which different companies compete with each other to sell their products