hippodrome
/ˈhɪpədrəʊm
/noun
1 [as name] A theatre or concert hall: the Birmingham Hippodrome...
- The team has already run an F1 car around the Circus Maximus in Rome, and the historic Sultanahmet hippodrome in Istanbul's city centre.
- No horse races took place at the Palermo hippodrome in the City of Buenos Aires on August 24 and 25.
2(In ancient Greece or Rome) a stadium for chariot or horse races.The most popular entertainments were the theater, frequently denounced by the clergy for nudity and immorality, and the races at the hippodrome....
- Both these treaties are shown on the base of the obelisk of Theodosius, erected in the hippodrome at Constantinople in 390, as triumphs of Roman arms.
- Chariot races staged in the hippodrome - always a crowd-pleaser - opened the games.
Origin
Late 16th century (in sense 2): from French, via Latin from Greek hippodromos, from hippos 'horse' + dromos 'race, course'. The early sense led to the term's use as a grandiose name for a modern circus, later applied to other places of popular entertainment (sense 1, late 19th century).