agora

¹

[ ag-er-uh ]

noun

, plural ag·o·rae [ag, -, uh, -ree].

1. a popular political assembly.
2. the place where such an assembly met, originally a marketplace or public square.
3. the Ag·o·ra, the chief marketplace of Athens, center of the city's civic life.

agora

²

[ ah-gawr-uh, -gohr-uh; Sephardic Hebrew ah-gaw-rah ]

noun

, plural a·go·rot [ah-, gawr, -oht, -, gohr, -, ah-gaw-, rawt].

1. an aluminum coin and monetary unit of Israel, one 100th of a shekel: replaced the prutah as the fractional unit in 1960.

agora

¹

/ ˌæɡəˈrɑː /

noun

1. an Israeli monetary unit worth one hundredth of a shekel

agora

²

/ ˈæɡərə /

noun

1. often capital
   1. the marketplace in Athens, used for popular meetings, or any similar place of assembly in ancient Greece
   2. the meeting itself

Word History and Origins

Origin of agora¹

First recorded in 1590–1600; from Greek agorā́ “assembly (of the common people, not the nobility), marketplace,” derivative of ageírein “to gather together”

Origin of agora²

First recorded in 1960–65; from Hebrew ăgōrāh “coin, payment,” from āgār “to hire”

Word History and Origins

Origin of agora¹

Hebrew, from āgōr to collect

Origin of agora²

from Greek, from agorein to gather

Example Sentences

The report is the initial phase of an ambitious effort to map the modern agora, referring to the lively assembly places of ancient Greece often considered to be the birthplace of democracy.

From Science Daily

Futel describes its mission as preserving “public telephone hardware as a means of providing access to the agora for everybody,” using a Greek term for central public space.

From Seattle Times

“We offer the program online, but we always anticipated giving students the opportunity to be in a public square or a Roman forum or Greek agora,” said Louise Mirrer, the Historical Society president and C.E.O.

From New York Times

But term limits transformed Sacramento not into a Greek-style agora of free men, but a swamp where Republican fortunes have sunk ever since like a mastodon in the La Brea tar pits.

From Los Angeles Times

Then there was the Umayyad mosque, built on the site of a Hellenistic agora, called after the dynasty that founded it in the eighth century but its surviving fabric coming from later periods.

From The Guardian

Related Words

• arcade
• bazaar
• flea market
• mall
• plaza
• shopping mall