Definition of "public square" [public square]

• A place of assembly for the people in ancient Greece (noun)
• An open area at the meeting of two or more streets (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "THE next day after my arrival, I was introduced to the ancient chiefs, at the public square or areopagus, and in the evening in company with the traders, who are numerous in this town, repaired to the great rotunda, where were assembled the greatest number of ancient venerable chiefs and warriors that I had ever beheld; we spent the evening and greater part of the night together, in drinking Cassine and smoking Tobacco."
• "Some on the left (although not those in public office) go further, dismissing religion in the public square as inherently irrational, intolerant, and therefore dangerous-and noting that, with its emphasis on personal salvation and the policing of private morality, religious talk has given conservatives cover to ignore questions of public morality, like poverty or corporate malfeasance."
• "A Ceauescu speech from a balcony overlooking a public square in Bucharest was, for the first time in decades, interrupted by hecklers."