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You are here: Home / Language / What Does the Word “Gymnasium” Mean in Greek and How Did the Word “Stadium” Originate?

What Does the Word “Gymnasium” Mean in Greek and How Did the Word “Stadium” Originate?

May 20, 2020 by Karen Hill

The word gymnasium is from the Greek word gymnos, which means “nude.”

gymnasium means nude in greek

Thus, gymnasium literally means “a school for naked exercise.”

The first Olympic event for the nude male athletes, or gymnasts, was a foot race known as a stade.

It was also a Greek unit of measurement for the distance of the race, which was six hundred feet, and that is why the facility was called a stadium.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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