emporium

Meanings

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.

1. A borough, the county seat of Cameron County, Pennsylvania, United States.

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. Not related to English empire.