Mall

[mawl; British also mal] /mɔl; British also mæl/

noun
1.
Also called shopping mall. a large retail complex containing a variety of stores and often restaurants and other business establishments housed in a series of connected or adjacent buildings or in a single large building.
Compare .
2.
a large area, usually lined with shade trees and shrubbery, used as a public walk or promenade.
3.
Chiefly Upstate New York. a strip of land, usually planted or paved, separating lanes of opposite traffic on highways, boulevards, etc.
4.
the game of pall-mall.
5.
the mallet used in the game of pall-mall.
6.
the place or alley where pall-mall was played.
/mæl; mɔːl/
noun
1.
a shaded avenue, esp one that is open to the public
2.
(US & Canadian, Austral & NZ) short for shopping mall
n.

1737, “shaded walk serving as a promenade,” generalized from The Mall, name of a broad, tree-lined promenade in St. James’s Park, London (so called from 1670s, earlier Maill, 1640s), which was so called because it formerly was an open alley that was used to play pall-mall, a croquet-like game involving hitting a ball with a mallet through a ring, from French pallemaille, from Italian pallamaglio, from palla “ball” (see balloon) + maglio “mallet” (see mallet). Modern sense of “enclosed shopping gallery” is from 1963. Mall rat is from 1985.
World-Wide Web
A collection of World-Wide Web documents featuring commercial products and services, usually served by one particualr Internet access provider.
(1995-04-10)