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mar·ket

(märkĭt)

a. A public gathering held for buying and selling goods or services: a weekly flower market.

b. An open space or a building where goods or services are offered for sale by multiple sellers: bought the chair at the downtown antiques market.

c. A store or shop that sells agricultural produce: bought vegetables from the corner market.

a. A system of exchange in which prices are determined by the interaction of multiple, competing buyers and sellers: an electronic market for trading pollution credits.

b. A similar system in which information or ideas are evaluated by multiple competing interests.

a. The buyers and sellers for a particular good or service or within a particular region: recent college graduates entering the US labor market.

b. The business transacted between such sellers and buyers: a slump in the housing market.

c. The price of a particular good or service as determined by supply and demand: The gold market climbed for the fifth straight day.

d. The demand for a particular commodity: a big market for denim; a growth market.

4. A standing commitment to buy and sell a given security at stated prices: a brokerage that made a market in the company's stock.

5. A subdivision of a population considered as consumers: targeting the teen market; a new product for the West Coast market.

6. The market price: executed the sale at market.

v. mar·ket·ed, mar·ket·ing, mar·kets

v.tr.

1. To offer for sale: merchants marketing their wares in the souk.

2. To try to make (a product or service) appealing to particular groups of consumers; promote by marketing.

v.intr.

1. To deal in a market; engage in buying or selling.

2. To buy household supplies: We marketed for a special Sunday dinner.

Idioms:

in the market

Interested in buying: We are in the market for a used car.

on the market

1. Available for buying: Many kinds of seasonal flowers are on the market.

2. Up for sale: They put the family business on the market.

[Middle English, from Old North French, from Vulgar Latin *marcātus, from Latin mercātus, from past participle of mercārī, to buy, from merx, merc-, merchandise.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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