marketplace

• market place, (archaic) market-place

market +‎ place

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marketplace (plural marketplaces)

1. An open area in a town housing a public market.
2. The space, actual or metaphorical, in which a market operates.

   Some high-street retailers were slow to enter the new digital marketplace of the Internet.

3. (by extension) The world of commerce and trade.
4. (figurative) A place or sphere for the exchange of anything, such as ideas or fashions.

   marketplace of ideas

   • 2000, Jason A. Frank, John Tambornino, Vocations of Political Theory, page 239:

     While political theory frequently appears condemned to nostalgic reflection, cultural studies often dulls its critical edge in the never-ending stampede to document the newest styles and counterstyles of the cultural marketplace.

   • 2007, Al Gore, The Assault on Reason, New York: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 268:

     So I have seen this controversy from both sides, and I truly believe that the most important factor is the preservation of the Internet's potential for becoming the new neutral marketplace of ideas that is so needed for the revitalization of American democracy.

• market square