Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Palaestra

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PALAESTRA (παλαίστρα). Properly, a Greek word, often used in the same sense as GYMNASIUM; or the distinction between the two terms may consist in this, that the palaestra originally and properly speaking was the place were the athletes who contended at the public games were trained and exercised in the art of boxing, wrestling, &c.; the gymnasium, on the contrary, an establishment in which the youth of Greece enjoyed the recreation of juvenile sports and gymnastic exercises; the palaestra being that particular department of it in which the gymnastic discipline was undergone. (Plaut. Bacch. iii. 3. 23. Catull. lxiii. 60. Vitruv. v. 11.) See GYMNASIUM.

2. The Romans, when they applied the word specially, used it to designate a particular part of their villas fitted up for the purpose of active games and exercises. Cic. Q. Fr. iii. 1. 2.