palaistra

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A form of palaestra — A public area in ancient Greece and Rome dedicated to the teaching and practice of wrestling and other sports; a wrestling school, a gymnasium.

Scrabble 11

Meanings

nounpalaistra (plural palaistrai or palaistras)

plural palaistrai · plural palaistras

  1. alternativeAlternative form of palaestra.

    Where did he train the teams of his fellow-tribesmen? Probably he hired trainers in the private palaistrai.

    1973, T[homas] B[ertram] L[onsdale] Webster, Athenian Culture and Society, London: Batsford, →ISBN, page 51
    5 more examples

    In primitive times the palaistras had no architectural character; a meadow and a sandy reach, generally upon the bank of a brook and shaded by trees, sufficed as a training-ground.

    1882, Franz von Reber, translated by Joseph Thacher Clarke, History of Ancient Art, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 255

    Particular Sophists attached themselves to particular gymnasia and palaistrai which they came to regard as their schools.

    1908, Kenneth J[ohn] Freeman, edited by M[ontague] J[ohn] Rendall, Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B.C., London: Macmillan and Co. Limited, page 138

    The Old Oligarch, contradicting his assertions about education above, later claims that although a few rich people have gymnasia and baths of their own, the people builds for its own use many palaistrai and baths (2, 10).

    1979, L’Antiquité classique, volume 48, page 543

    Whether or not Delorme's interpretation of Lykourgos’s activity is correct, it is certainly true that the earliest preserved examples of palaistrai with peristyle courts belong to the last third or so of the fourth century, for instance, the gymnasium at Delphi (figs. 276a–b) and the Timoleonteion at Syracuse in Sicily.

    2006, Frederick E. Winter, Studies in Hellenistic Architecture, Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 118, column 2

    Palaistras and gymnasia were an important aspect of city life, a popular place for men to gather and observe beautiful youths training their bodies and exercising their minds.

    2011, Amalia Avramidou, The Codrus Painter: Iconography and Reception of Athenian Vases in the Age of Pericles, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 61, column 1

Origin

  1. Ancient Greekπαλαίστρᾱ
  2. Englishpalaistra

From Ancient Greek παλαίστρᾱ (palaístrā).

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

palaistra. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/palaistra

MLA

“palaistra.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/palaistra. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “palaistra,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/palaistra.

Source: palaistra on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.