Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A place where various goods are bought and sold; a marketplace.
  • noun A large retail store or place of business.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place of trade; a mart; a town or city of important commerce, especially one in which the commerce of an extensive country centers, or to which sellers and buyers resort from other cities or countries; a commercial center.
  • noun A bazaar; a shop or store for the sale of a great variety of articles.
  • noun In anc. med., the brain, because there all mental affairs are transacted.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A place of trade; a market place; a mart; esp., a city or town with extensive commerce; the commercial center of a country.
  • noun (Physiol.), obsolete The brain.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A market place or trading centre, particularly of an ancient city.
  • noun A shop that offers a wide variety of goods, often used facetiously.
  • noun A department store.
  • noun obsolete The brain.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a large retail store organized into departments offering a variety of merchandise; commonly part of a retail chain

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, from Greek emporion, from emporos, traveler, merchant : en-, in; see en– + poros, journey; see per- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin emporium ("trading station, market town, market"); from Ancient Greek ἐμπορεῖον (emporion, "trading station"), from ἔμπορος (emporos, "merchant", "traveller", literally "incomer""), from ἐν (en, "in") and πόρος (poros, "fare")

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