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

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

Advertisement And the beach really is our public square — to be able to access this landscape, to enjoy it, this is so intrinsically part of our identity as Californians. —Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 21 Sep. 2023

Grupo Frontera joins a long list of national and international artists who have set foot in the second-largest public square in the world, only behind Tiananmen in Beijing. —Natalia Cano, Billboard, 23 Aug. 2023

The Mexican-American band will perform at the capital’s Zócalo — the country’s most important public square — on Sept. 15 for the annual Grito de Independencia event, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced Wednesday (Aug. 23). —Natalia Cano, Billboard, 23 Aug. 2023

Grupo Frontera is set to help celebrate Mexican Independence Day with a special performance at the Zócalo — the country’s most important public square — on Sept. 15. —Griselda Flores, Billboard, 26 Aug. 2023

The Woodcock Foundation is a funder of Headway’s public square. —Conor Dougherty, New York Times, 25 Aug. 2023

On Saturday, a Russian attack on a public square in the northern city of Chernihiv killed at least seven people, including a child. —Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 21 Aug. 2023

In Paris and Prague, Vienna and Budapest, Berlin and Bucharest, public squares, cafés, and clubs gave Europe fresh constitutions and new parliaments, and a sense of the slate being wiped clean—the prospect of beginning the project of History over again. —James Robins, The New Republic, 8 Aug. 2023

Section of town where lots of people gather close to public square, close to the game. —Staff Reports, cleveland, 8 Aug. 2023

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Word History

First Known Use

1757, in the meaning defined at sense 1