stadium
- 1A large venue with tiered seating where sporting events are held.
The stadium fell silent before the final penalty kick.
Crews spent two years building the Olympic stadium.
UsageThe usual plural is stadiums, though stadia is also seen. People are at or in the stadium.
Similararena, ground, coliseum
Note
The modern arena takes its name from an ancient running track. Greek stádion meant both a running track and a measure of length, and the track at Olympia was one stadium long, a link that the ancient racecourse keeps alive.
- 2A racecourse in ancient Greece, especially the course used for foot races at the Olympic Games.
At ancient Olympia, runners sprinted the full length of the stadium in the oldest race of the Games.
The ancient stadium at Olympia had no stone seats, so spectators sat on the earth banks along the track.
UsageThe Greek form stadion is often used instead, to make clear the ancient track is meant.
- 3A Greek unit of length equal to about 185 meters, the same as a stadion.
The messenger ran nearly forty stadia to deliver the news.
Ancient writers gave the river's width as half a stadium.
UsageHere the plural is often stadia (forty stadia), though stadiums also appears.
Similarstadion
Note
This is a measure that belongs to writing about the ancient world. Its Latin counterpart was commonly an eighth of a Roman mile, and early English Bibles rendered it as furlong. Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, retells how Dionysiodorus sent a letter back from the dead putting the earth's center 42,000 stadiums down.
Less common meanings
- 4A distinct developmental stage in the life cycle of an organism.
- 5A graduated rod that a surveyor sights through a telescope, reading the marks between two fixed wires to calculate distance.
- 6A telemeter that gauges the distance to an object of known size by measuring the angle that object subtends in view.
Practice
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Origin
From Latin stadium ("a measure of length, a racecourse"), commonly one-eighth of a Roman mile, which came from Ancient Greek stádion, a measure of length or running track, especially the track at Olympia that was one stadium long. The Greek word may have meant, literally, "fixed standard of length," being formed from stádios ("firm, fixed"), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *steh₂-, also the root of stand and of Latin stare.