stadium
/ˈsteɪdɪəm
/noun (plural stadiums or stadia /ˈsteɪdɪə/)
1An athletic or sports ground with tiers of seats for spectators.In fact, it would be a fair point to state that mandatory seating in Premier League stadia has played a role in lessening trouble in the stands....
- Clusters of empty seats throughout the stadium were evidence that some had not overcome their disappointment.
- A result of the Taylor recommendations following the Hillsborough disaster was that football stadia should provide seating for all spectators.
Synonyms
arena, field, ground, pitch;
bowl, amphitheatre, coliseum, colosseum, enclosure, ring, dome, astrodome, manège;
track, course, racetrack, racecourse, speedway, velodrome;
in ancient Rome circus;
West Indian gayelle
rare cirque
1.1(In ancient Rome or Greece) a track for a foot race or chariot race.Caligula was murdered by his own guard while exiting from the stadium of some public games....
- The stadium was the home of the ancient Olympics until they were stopped in 393AD.
- The plans were sparked by the astonishing discovery of a Roman stadium at Colchester Garrison.
2 (plural stadia) An ancient Roman or Greek measure of length, about 185 metres (originally the length of a stadium).Of course how accurate this value is depends on the length of the stadium and scholars have argued over this for a long time....
- The long and short of it: aunes, cubits, leagues, palms, stadia - old-fashioned units of measurement make it hard to do science.
- He then marked off where the lines of longitude crossed the parallel of Rhodes, taking 400 stadia per degree.
Origin
Late Middle English (in sense 2): via Latin from Greek stadion. Sense 1 dates from the mid 19th century.
furlong from Old English:
Old English furlang is from furh ‘furrow’ and lang ‘long’, and meant the standard length of a furrow in a common field, which was regarded as a nominal square of ten acres. It was also used as the equivalent of the Roman measurement the stadium, one eighth of a Roman mile, which gave rise to the current sense. Stadium came from Greek stadion ‘race track’ and stadium came to be used in this sense in the early 17th century, with sports stadium appearing in the mid 19th century.