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

Belanger was a World War II veteran who fought with ordinary distinction against a fascist German regime rampaging across Europe — one that launched its reign of terror with the 1933 burning of a homosexual’s library on a Berlin public square. —Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2025

The blaze did not invoke the same gut-dropping panic of gunshots in a crowded public square. —Shelly Bradbury, Denver Post, 3 June 2025

Mendler was fascinated with it—Twitter in particular—and its role as the new public square. —ArsTechnica, 11 June 2025

Protestors gathered at a municipal headquarters and police station in Istanbul, and at universities and public squares across the country, leading to some scuffles with police officers who had erected barricades and closed off streets. —CNN, 20 Mar. 2025

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