Definitions

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

  • noun A market consisting of a street lined with shops and stalls, especially one in the Middle East.
  • noun A shop or a part of a store in which miscellaneous articles are sold.
  • noun A fair or sale at which miscellaneous articles are sold, often for charitable purposes.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In the East, an exchange, market-place, or place where goods are exposed for sale, consisting either of small shops or stalls in a narrow street or series of streets, or of a certain section in a town under one roof and divided by narrower passageways, in which all or most of the merchants and artisans in a certain material or metal, or any single class of goods, are gathered both for manufacture and traffic.
  • noun A sale of miscellaneous articles in furtherance of some charitable or other purpose; a fancy fair. The articles there sold are mostly of fancy work, and contributed gratuitously.

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

  • noun In the East, an exchange, marketplace, or assemblage of shops where goods are exposed for sale.
  • noun A spacious hall or suite of rooms for the sale of goods, as at a fair.
  • noun A fair for the sale of fancy wares, toys, etc., commonly for a charitable purpose.

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

  • noun A marketplace, particularly in the Middle East, and often covered with shops and stalls.
  • noun A shop selling articles that are either exotic or eclectic.
  • noun A fair or temporary market, often for charity.
  • noun Common misspelling of bizarre.

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

  • noun a street of small shops (especially in Orient)
  • noun a shop where a variety of goods are sold
  • noun a sale of miscellany; often for charity

Etymologies

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

[Italian bazarro and Urdu bāzār, both from Persian bāzār; see wes- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian bazarra, from Persian بازار (bâzâr) 'market', from Middle Persian 𐭥𐭠𐭰𐭠𐭥 (vāčāṙ) (compare Old Armenian վաճառ (vačaṙ)), from Old Persian vahā-čarana ("market-walkabout"), compound of Proto-Indo-European *wesā- 'to buy' and *kʷéle/o 'to turn'. More at vend and wheel.

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Examples

  • Near the bazaar is the post-office, a complete sinecure, as, except on the two days a week when the post comes and goes for Massowah, Jedda, or

    Three Months in the Soudan 1885

  • Seven months on, the Baghdad political bazaar is still open.

    Pax Americana and the New Iraq Fouad Ajami 2010

  • Slap, say, a $5 (or $10 -- the bazaar is open) tax on every imported barrel.

    Oil Import Tariff?, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • Doing a PHD in social networking (and stints at Yahoo) would make Danah forecast 'social network fatigue', but her dystopian Desperate Housewives meets their always-on kids in the gootube bazaar is so funny it must be true - Class will be split into private mean girls cliques and interspersed with child star bonaduces, security guard gary coleman playing net nanny, and Marcia Cross tubd spankn vignettes.

    "Forget dirty laundry, we're talking a full inversion of the house." Ben Barren 2007

  • Update: An American BoingBoing reader who's a military man in Afghanistan (requesting anonymity) writes, Every other week here in Kabul, a bazaar is held on our base where local products are sold.

    Boing Boing: July 4, 2004 - July 10, 2004 Archives 2004

  • Slap, say, a $5 (or $10 -- the bazaar is open) tax ...

    EconLog: June 2003 Archives 2003

  • The carpet bazaar is of considerable extent, and consists of a network of alleys and counter-alleys opening off to the right of the Muski, which is the Regent Street of Cairo.

    A Thousand Miles Up the Nile 1891

  • The bazaar is in the centre of the island, and consists of about a dozen shops kept up by Greeks, and about twenty other small ones by Arabs, from Jedda, and Egyptians.

    Three Months in the Soudan 1885

  • The principal bazaar is a very long street, decently clean, covered over, and all lined with small shops.

    Three Months in the Soudan 1885

  • 'There's better than a toy-shop -- a wonderful sort of place they call a bazaar,' Rough replied.

    The Rectory Children Mrs. Molesworth 1880

Comments

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  • A flock of guillemots

    November 16, 2007

  • I'm reminded of a grade-school classmate who, when tasked with making a poster for the church bazaar, made a delightfully artistic and well-lettered one for a local grocery store that said "Church Bizarre." I thought for sure they wouldn't use it, but they did.

    May 18, 2010