Pl. arenas. [a. L. arēna, prop. harēna, sand, the sand-strewn place of combat in an amphitheatre, etc.]
1. The central part of an amphitheatre, in which the combats or spectacular displays take place, and which was originally strewn with sand to absorb the blood of the wounded and slain. Used also, by extension, of the whole amphitheatre.
1627. Hakewill, Apol. (1630), 396. The Arena, the place below in which their games were exhibited.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. 352. The arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., I. lxviii. The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, vi. 55. Exhibiting a hundred lions in the arena matched against Numidian archers.
2. fig. A scene or sphere of conflict; a battle-field.
1814. Byron, Lara, II. ix. But dragg’d again upon the arena, stood A leader not unequal to the feud.
1817. Chalmers, Astron. Disc., ii. (1852), 50. The arena on which the modern philosophy has won all her victories.
c. 1854. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., ix. 329. It would naturally become the arena of war.
1863. H. Rogers, J. Howe, vii. 181. Howe seldom entered the arena of controversy.
3. Any sphere of public or energetic action.
1798. Malthus, Popul. (1878), 330. A large arena for the employment of an increasing capital.
1857. H. Reed, Lect. Brit. Poets, iv. 127. Rushing into the arena of authorship.
4. Med. ‘Gravel bred in a Human Body.’ Phillips, 1706. ‘Sand or gravel deposited from the urine.’ Syd. Soc. Lex., 1880.
