arenan.
/əˈriːnə/, U.S. /əˈrinə/ 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.
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society > leisure > the arts > performance arts > a public show or spectacle > [noun] > place for public shows > amphitheatre > arena
sand1587
sand-plot1619
arena1627
1627 G. Hakewill Apologie iv. viii. 369 The Arena, the place below in which their games were exhibited.
1776 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall I. 352 The arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand.
1812 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Cantos I & II i. lxviii. 42 The throng'd Arena shakes with shouts for more.
1879 J. A. Froude Cæsar vi. 55 Exhibiting a hundred lions in the arena matched against Numidian archers.
2. figurative. A scene or sphere of conflict; a battle-field.
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society > society and the community > dissent > contention or strife > [noun] > place where contest is fought out
fieldeOE
listc1386
cockpita1568
amphitheatre1710
arena1814
scrambling-place1878
scrambling-ground1884
1814 Ld. Byron Lara ii. ix. 905 But dragg'd again upon the arena, stood A leader not unequal to the feud.
1817 T. Chalmers Series Disc. Christian Revelation ii. 68 The arena on which the modern philosophy has won all her victories.
c1854 A. P. Stanley Sinai & Palestine ix. 329 It would naturally become the arena of war.
1863 H. Rogers Life J. Howe vii. 181 Howe seldom entered the arena of controversy.
3. Any sphere of public or energetic action.
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the world > space > place > [noun] > in which something takes place or prevails > scene of public or intense action
theatre1615
arena1817
hot chair1927
hot seat1930
1817 T. R. Malthus Ess. Princ. Population (ed. 5) II. iii. ix. 406 A large arena for the employment of an increasing capital.
a1854 H. Reed Lect. Brit. Poets (1857) iv. 127 Rushing into the arena of authorship.
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4. Medicine. ‘Gravel bred in a Human Body.’ Phillips 1706. ‘Sand or gravel deposited from the urine.’ New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon 1880.
5. Applied attributively to a style of play production in which the stage is so positioned in the auditorium that it is surrounded by the audience, who thus, as in the Greek theatron, see the players ‘in the round’. This style was introduced in November 1932 by Glenn Hughes, director of the Washington School of Drama. His first productions were known as ‘Penthouse’ from the place of their performance; the word arena came later as the technique was adopted elsewhere in America and abroad.
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society > leisure > the arts > performance arts > the theatre or the stage > the staging of a theatrical production > [adjective] > types of staging
scened1828
penthouse1940
arena1944
surtitled1986
1944 N. Felton in National Theatre Conference Bull. (U.S.) VI. 17 (title) Arena Theatre. Method for Producing a Play.
1948 Theatre Arts June–July 58 Called variously central staging, theatre-in-the-round, or arena theatre, the new form has suddenly made any large unencumbered room a possible stage.
1949 Here & Now (N.Z.) Oct. 14/2 From the point of view of a touring company the advantages of an arena production are fairly obvious.
1955 Times 11 May 7/2 The auditorium..is in the shape of a semi-circle, but may be changed into a circle for what is called the ‘arena stage’, when the movable sides of the proscenium opening are taken away and the curve of the cyclorama is extended to make a wall behind three additional rows of seats on the stage itself.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1885; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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