flea market
37
2.3
- noun
- /fliː ˈmɑːrkɪt/
:
mercado de pulgas
- That weekend, my mama took me to the flea market and gave me five bucks to spend on anything I wanted.
How did this guy not know that this sign says flea market?
- How did this guy not know that this sign says flea market?
- When I was a kid, I was buying all sorts of dumb shit to sell, but I had to go to flea markets on the weekend, find eBay.
- Every Friday after school I would go to the dollar store or the mall, buy stuff to sell at baseball card shows or flea markets.
- And I believe I wore a pair of flea market dangly earrings that had green in them and I was happy about the mix of the two.
- And one of the one member of this couple had had knitted so much over COVID, they started selling their knit hats at local flea markets.
- And Speaking of con men, Donald Trump has expanded the MAGA flea market merch.
- It looks like a nouveau riche, white trash, riff raff Knick knack flea market.
- I mean, this is this is he sells riff raff and Knick knacks on his website at his flea market.
- Literally just walking back from the coffee shop to head home and a simple cost the cutest little flea market.
Examples
-
Then Elaine took a cab to the Sixth Avenue weekend flea market to resume the hunt for urban folk art.
Fiction book (1994) -
Oh, I got it at a flea market about five years ago.
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And last week we went to the flea market.
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Well, we could pay a little visit to a guy I know at the flea market.
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And we're going right to the flea market to get another one!
Fiction book (1994) -
On a certain Saturday in November, Jack and his friend Amy were at their favorite flea market.
Academic text (2011) -
Got this nice little basket from a flea market as well as these old books.
-
I actually bought him that t-shirt at a flea market.
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The woman at the flea market said her ex-husband was a traveling salesman.
Fiction book (1999) -
Last Saturday, I found some vintage clothes at a flea market near the park.
Synonyms
30
1.8
An open area or building in a town where people buy and sell goods
17
3.4
A busy market with many small shops selling goods, often outdoors
2
1.6
A market that takes place outdoors where stalls sell food and other goods
An outdoor market where people sell things from the back of their car
An outdoor market where people sell things from the back of their cars
An outdoor place on a sidewalk where people sell food and goods
An outdoor place where people sell food and crafts
An open town area where people meet to buy and sell goods
How Affordable
Surface Forms
Morphology
flea + market
A B1 learner who knows 'flea' (a small insect) and 'market' (a place to buy and sell) would not reliably infer 'an outdoor market for secondhand goods'—the literal composition suggests a market for fleas, which is misleading. The meaning is historical/idiomatic (originally implying old goods that might have fleas); although some languages use similar calques, the semantic link is not transparently predictable, so learners need prior exposure.
Etymology
The name flea market comes from an old French phrase that meant 'market of fleas' because sellers often sold used clothes and things that sometimes carried real fleas; the words flea and market give that literal image. So flea market now means a place to buy 'secondhand goods' and cheap treasures.