public square

noun

1

: an open public area in a city or town where people gather

St. Mark's Square in Venice is sinking at a time when this Italian city's popularity is rising. The world's most famous public square now floods an average of three out of every five days.

—Tom Crosby

Mexico City's Zócalo … is the country's main public square and the second largest in the world after Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

—Natalia Cano

2

: the sphere of public opinion

In an August 2007 speech, then-New York governor Eliot Spitzer expounded upon Reinhold Niebuhr and the virtues of humility in the public square.

—Lisa Miller

… using legal action to cow an opponent into silence, and withdrawal from the public square.

—Mark Steyn

Examples of public square in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Participants spill into streets, courtyards and public squares covered head to toe in pigment, and strangers smear color on one another as a greeting. —Hanna Wickes, Sacbee.com, 2 June 2026

The area, including the Champs-de-Mars public square, had long been inaccessible because of gang violence. —Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 2 June 2026

The global public square has been getting coarser for years, and social media has played a big part in the deterioration. —Bobby Ghosh, Time, 1 June 2026

Bellecour public square, while municipal police in the southern city of Montpellier used tear gas spray, the police service said. —ABC News, 18 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1757, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for public square

• aftercare
• anywhere
• billionaire
• chinaware
• debonair
• dinnerware
• disrepair
• doctrinaire
• earthenware
• everywhere
• frigidaire
• kitchenware