noun
mall
MAWL/mɔːl/
A large shopping center containing many stores.
The mall has dozens of stores and a busy food court.
Etymology
The mallet connection comes from pall-mall, a ball-and-mallet game whose playing alley gave a London promenade its name. Mall then extended from a walking promenade to a pedestrian shopping area and finally an enclosed shopping center.
In context
you want to take your dog to the mall in the middle of a holiday shopping frenzy
More examples
- We browse several shoe stores at the mall.
- The new mall opens at ten every morning.
- Both malls offer free parking for shoppers.
Forms
mall · malls
Similar words
- shopping center
- Broader term that also includes smaller, open-air retail complexes.
- shopping plaza
- Usually an open-air group of stores sharing a parking lot.