arena

Borrowed from Latin arēna, meaning both "sand" and "arena." That Latin word came from an earlier form harēna, which traces back to Old Latin hasēna, possibly of Etruscan origin, with a possible Sabine cousin, fasēna.

The word started as a plain word for sand, then narrowed in Latin to name the sand-covered floor of an amphitheater where contests were staged — and eventually the word came to stand for the whole space of contest itself.

The facts note a possible Sabine cognate, fasēna, showing that ancient Italic languages had their own parallel word for the same gritty ground.