mall

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large building or area with many shops and restaurants under one roof.

   We spent Saturday afternoon shopping at the new mall downtown.

2. 2
   noun

   A street or area for walking where no cars are allowed, often lined with shops.

   The town turned the old high street into a pedestrian mall.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Mall developed from pall-mall, a 17th-century game in which a ball was struck with a mallet along an alley; the game’s name came through French from Italian words for ‘ball’ and ‘mallet’. The alley itself came to be called a pall-mall, and by the 18th century mall could mean a sheltered promenade. The shopping sense is first recorded in the United States in 1950.

Probably from The Mall, a major street in London, England, which was originally a pall mall alley.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary