In semiotics, khôra (also chora; Ancient Greek: χώρα) is the space that gives a place for being. The term has been used in philosophy by Plato to designate a receptacle (as a "third kind" [triton genos]; Timaeus 48e4), a space, a material substratum, or an interval. In Plato's account, khôra is described as a formless interval, alike to a non-being, in between which the "Forms" were received from the intelligible realm (where they were originally held) and were "copied", shaping into the transitory forms of the sensible realm; it "gives space" and has maternal overtones (a womb, matrix):

“Moreover, a third kind is that of the Khôra (χώρας), everlasting, not admitting destruction, granting an abode to all things having generation, itself to be apprehended with nonsensation, by a sort of bastard reckoning, hardly trustworthy; and looking toward which we dream and affirm that it is necessary that all that is be somewhere in some place and occupy some khôra; and that that which is neither on earth nor anywhere in the heaven is nothing."

— Plato, Timaeus, 52a–b

"So likewise it is right that the substance which is to be fitted to receive frequently over its whole extent the copies of all things intelligible and eternal should itself, of its own nature, be void of all the forms. Wherefore, let us not speak of her that is the Mother and Receptacle of this generated world, which is perceptible by sight and all the senses, by the name of earth or air or fire or water, or any aggregates or constituents thereof: rather, if we describe her as a Kind invisible and unshaped, all-receptive, and in some most perplexing and most baffling partaking of the intelligible, we shall describe her truly."

— Plato, Timaeus, 51a

In Ancient Greek: χώρα, romanized: khṓrā is the space where something is, or any generic place.

Aristotle merged his teacher's concept with his definitions of prima materia (hylé), place (topos) and substratum (hypokeimenon), in the book 4 of Physics: "This is why Plato says in the Timaeus that matter and the khôra are the same; for the receptive and the khôra are one and the same. Although the manner in which he speaks about the receptive in the Timaeus differs from that in the so-called unwritten teachings, nevertheless he declares that place and the khôra are the same".

Key authors addressing khôra include Martin Heidegger, who refers to a "clearing" in which being happens or takes place. Kitaro Nishida stated that he based his concept of basho, Place, on the abyssal nothing mu inspired by his reading of Plato's notion of khôra.