BAZAAR

BAZAAR (Pers. bazar, market), a permanent market or street of shops, or a group of short narrow streets of stalls under one roof. The word has spread westward into Arabic, Turkish and, in special senses, into European languages, and eastward it has invaded India, where it has been generally adopted. In southern India and Ceylon bazaar means a single shop or stall. The word seems to have early reached South Europe (probably through Turkish), for F. Balducci Pegolotti in his mercantile handbook (c. 1340) gives "bazarra" as a Genoese word for market-place. The Malayan peoples have adopted the word as pasar. The meaning of the word has been much extended in English, where it is now equivalent to any sale, for charitable or mere commercial purposes, of mixed goods and fancy work.