From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
arena
n 1: a particular environment or walk of life; "his social
sphere is limited"; "it was a closed area of employment";
"he's out of my orbit" [syn: sphere, domain, area,
orbit, field, arena]
2: the central area of an ancient Roman amphitheater where
contests and spectacles were held; especially an area that
was strewn with sand
3: a large structure for open-air sports or entertainments [syn:
stadium, bowl, arena, sports stadium]
4: a playing field where sports events take place [syn: arena,
scene of action]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Arena \A*re"na\, n.; pl. E. Arenas; L. {Aren[ae]}. [L. arena,
harena, sand, a sandy place.]
1. (Rom. Antiq.) The area in the central part of an
amphitheater, in which the gladiators fought and other
shows were exhibited; -- so called because it was covered
with sand.
[1913 Webster]
2. Any place of public contest or exertion; any sphere of
action; as, the arenaof debate; the arena of life.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Med.) "Sand" or "gravel" in the kidneys.
[1913 Webster]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
arena
<programming> The area of memory attached to a Unix process
by the brk and sbrk system calls and used by malloc as
dynamic storage. So named from a "malloc: corrupt arena"
message emitted when some early versions detected an
impossible value in the free block list.
See overrun screw, aliasing bug, memory leak, {memory
smash}, smash the stack.
[Jargon File]
(1995-12-28)
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
arena
n.
[common; Unix] The area of memory attached to a process by brk(2) and
sbrk(2) and used by malloc(3) as dynamic storage. So named from a
malloc: corrupt arena message emitted when some early versions
detected an impossible value in the free block list. See {overrun
screw}, aliasing bug, memory leak, memory smash, {smash the
stack}.