Etymologically
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stadium

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈsteɪ.di.əm/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English stadie,[2] borrowed from Latin stadium (“a measure of length; a course for foot races”),[2][3] from Ancient Greek στάδιον (stádion, “a measure of length; a racecourse”).[2][3] The Greek word may mean “a fixed standard of length”, from stádios “firm, fixed”, from Proto-Indo-European *sta- (“to stand”),[2][3] or be an alteration, influenced by stádios, of earlier spádion “racecourse”, from spân “to draw, pull”;[3][4][5] Beekes allows that stadion is perhaps a folk-etymological transformation of spádion.[2] The English form was re-Latinized from early modern stade.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A foot race: about 1380, in Chaucer's Boece, according to Barnhart;[3] “a foot race, a racecourse” in the mid-14th century in Etymonline.[2]

Semantic evolution

As the ancient Greek and Roman measure of length, about 600 feet, it is from the early 15th century,[2] 1398 in the OED and Barnhart;[6][3] early English Bibles translated it furlong.[2] The running track for foot races, which developed because the most noted course, at Olympia, was one stadion long, is first recorded in Holland's Plutarch (1603).[3][2][6] The large, open structure with tiers of seats for sports is from 1834 in Etymonline,[2] by 1901 in Barnhart.[3] A stage of a process or disease is from 1669.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 1380 – a foot race.[3]
  • 1398 – a measure of length.[6][3]
  • 1603 – a running track.[3][6]
  • 1669 – a stage of a process.[6]
  • 1834 – a sports arena with tiers of seats.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A large, usually open structure with tiers of seats around a field for sports events.
  2. In ancient Greece, a course for foot races, with tiers of seats for spectators.
  3. An ancient Greek measure of length, about 607 feet.
  4. A stage in the development of an insect or disease.

Word family

  • stadimeter
  • stadia rod

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press