stadium

[ stey-dee-uhm ]

noun

, plural sta·di·ums, sta·di·a [stey, -dee-, uh].

1. a sports arena, usually oval or horseshoe-shaped, with tiers of seats for spectators.
2. an ancient Greek course for foot races, typically semicircular, with tiers of seats for spectators.
3. an ancient Greek and Roman unit of length, the Athenian unit being equal to about 607 feet (185 meters).
4. a stage in a process or in the life of an organism.
5. Entomology. stage ( def 11b ).

stadium

/ ˈsteɪdɪəm /

noun

1. a sports arena with tiered seats for spectators
2. (in ancient Greece) a course for races, usually located between two hills providing natural slopes for tiers of seats
3. an ancient Greek measure of length equivalent to about 607 feet or 184 metres
4. (in many arthropods) the interval between two consecutive moultings
5. obsolete.
   a particular period or stage in the development of a disease

Word History and Origins

Origin of stadium¹

1350–1400; Middle English < Latin < Greek stádion unit of distance, racecourse

Word History and Origins

Origin of stadium¹

C16: via Latin from Greek stadion , changed from spadion a racecourse, from spān to pull; also influenced by Greek stadios steady

Example Sentences

Engineers must first spend several days setting up each stadium that will use the system.

From Science News For Students

The district has also spent more than $100 million in recent years upgrading and creating fields and stadiums with bond money.

From Voice of San Diego

So while stadiums might have been quiet on opening day, in 2020, social media certainly wasn’t.

From Digiday

According to a collection of stadium profiles at Clem’s Baseball, most fans were never more than 60 feet above the playing surface at the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

From FiveThirtyEight

The idea is to stand up a temporary 15,000-seat stadium immediately on the parking lot while everything else is cooking.

From Voice of San Diego

In fact, he's not even high on the list of NFL players one jerks off too during halftime at Gillette Stadium.

From The Daily Beast

The Dallas Cowboys sell out their state-of-the art football stadium.

From The Daily Beast

It was around noon that Brinsley chucked the phone behind a radiator at the basketball stadium and went off the grid.

From The Daily Beast

The flag that was unveiled at Yankee Stadium 19 days after 9/11 was a different, much larger one.

From The Daily Beast

A winning team may pack the stadium, but you need that packed stadium to get top recruits and sustain victories.

From The Daily Beast

Mithridates discharged an arrow from the angle of the roof, and supposed that it fell a little beyond the distance of a stadium.

From Project Gutenberg

It was a quadrangular pyramid of baked brick, a stadium in height, and each of the sides a stadium in length.

From Project Gutenberg

For the river, which is a stadium in breadth, flows through the middle of the city, and the garden is on the side of the river.

From Project Gutenberg

One of the servants and flatterers of Agathocles, whose name was Philo, came out to the stadium still flustered with wine.

From Project Gutenberg

As soon as they had got the king, the Macedonians placed him on a horse and conducted him to the stadium.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• amphitheater
• field
• garden
• gymnasium