market

Etymology

From Middle English market, from late Old English market (“market”) and Anglo-Norman markiet (Old French marchié); both ultimately from Latin mercātus (“trade, market”), from mercor (“I trade, deal in, buy”), itself derived from merx (“wares, merchandise”). cognates Cognate with Old Frisian merkad, merked, marked, market (“market”), Middle Dutch market, marct (“market”), Old High German markat (“market”), Old Norse markaðr (“market”).

noun

1. A gathering of people for the purchase and sale of merchandise at a set time, often periodic.
   The right to hold a weekly market was an invaluable privilege not given to all towns in the Middle Ages.
   The market is a process, actuated by the interplay of the actions of the various individuals cooperating under the division of labor. 1949, Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action
2. City square or other fairly spacious site where traders set up stalls and buyers browse the merchandise.
   ‘I understand that the district was considered a sort of sanctuary,’ the Chief was saying. ‘ […] They tell me there was a recognized swag market down here.’ 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess
   The San Juan market is Mexico City's most famous deli of exotic meats, where an adventurous shopper can hunt down hard-to-find critters such as ostrich, wild boar and crocodile. Only the city zoo offers greater species diversity. 2013-07-26, Nick Miroff, “Mexico gets a taste for eating insects …”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 7, page 32
3. A grocery store
   Stop by the market on your way home and pick up some milk
4. A group of potential customers for one's product.
   We believe that the market for the new widget is the older homeowner.
5. A geographical area where a certain commercial demand exists.
   Foreign markets were lost as our currency rose versus their valuta.
6. A formally organized, sometimes monopolistic, system of trading in specified goods or effects.
   The stock market ceased to be monopolized by the paper-shuffling national stock exchanges with the advent of Internet markets.
   As they were approaching bankruptcy from being knocked out of the calculator market, they began development on the first commercially available microcomputer, the Altair. 1980, InfoWorld, volume 2, number 20
   If the takeover is approved, Comcast would control 20 of the top 25 cable markets, […]. Antitrust officials will need to consider Comcast’s status as a monopsony (a buyer with disproportionate power), when it comes to negotiations with programmers, whose channels it pays to carry. 2014-03-15, “Turn it off”, in The Economist, volume 410, number 8878
7. The sum total traded in a process of individuals trading for certain commodities.
8. (obsolete) The price for which a thing is sold in a market; hence, value; worth.

verb

1. (transitive) To make (products or services) available for sale and promote them.
   We plan to market an ecology model by next quarter.
2. (transitive) To sell.
   We marketed more this quarter already than all last year!
3. (intransitive) To deal in a market; to buy or sell; to make bargains for provisions or goods.
4. (intransitive) To shop in a market; to attend a market.
   We did a little shopping; but I cannot remember much of the town. It was Saturday night, and all Perth was marketing. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 201