# emporium

> English word · Noun · IPA /ɛmˈpɔːɹ.i.əm/ · frequency rank #32,790

## Definitions
1. A city or region which is a major trading centre; also, a place within a city for commerce and trading; a marketplace.
2. A shop that offers a wide variety of goods for sale; a department store; (with a descriptive word) a shop specializing in particular goods.
3. A business set up to enable foreign traders to engage in commerce in a country; a factory (now the more common term).
4. The brain.

## Etymology
Borrowed from Latin emporium (“trading station; business district in a city; market town”), from Ancient Greek ἐμπόριον (empórion, “factory, trading station; market”), from ἔμπορος (émporos, “merchant, trader; traveller”) + -ιον (-ion, suffix forming nouns). ἔμπορος is derived from ἐμ- (em-) (variant of ἐν- (en-, prefix meaning ‘in; within’)) + πόρος (póros, “journey; passageway”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to go through; to carry forth”)), modelled after ἐν πόρῳ (en pórōi, “at sea; en route”).
Sense 4 (“the brain”) alludes to the organ as the place where many nerves or nerve impulses meet.

## Common misspellings (11)
`emmporium`, `emoprium`, `empoirum`, `emporimu`, `emporiumm`, `emporrium`, `emporuim`, `empporium`, `emproium`, `epmorium`, `meporium`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/emporium