Definition of "coliseum"

Has he not found this wide region profusely sprinkled with public works—highways, bridges, acqueducts,[sic] arches, palaces, Colisea,—massive, Roman-built?

1859 November, “Christianity a Strong System”, in The New Englander, volume XVII, number LXVIII, New Haven, Conn.: William L. Kingsley, […], page 856

The nibbèd feather plumes its flights toward thee, / Thou mistress of mad poets and of night, / Cynthia, whom science weakly holds to be / The milky way’s coagulated light, / Or scooped from verdant Colisea of the Mite.

1868, P. F. Roe, “[Puzzles.] No. 4. Why is a Feather like Green Cheese?”, in Poems: Characteristic, Itinerary, and Miscellaneous, London: John Camden Hotten, […], part III (Minor Poems, Miscellaneous, Fugitive, and Occasional), page 184

Old-fashioned republicans like Cato in Rome deplore intricate hairdos, fringes on the toga, Lucullan banquets, specialized artisanry, the scale of entertainment in the Colisea and Circuses, toplofty military triumphs, sexual excess, serial marriage, and overindulgence of every kind.

2000, William R[omeyn] Everdell, “Conclusion”, in The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans, 2nd edition, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, page 304

These complex structures, whose towers seemed to touch the heavens, with ornate windows, vaulted ceilings and flying buttresses, were the Wembley Stadia, the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and the LA Memorial Colisea of their day – soaring temples to the worship of God designed to accommodate thousands, as awesome to behold then as they are today.

2014, Harry Bucknall, Like a Tramp, Like A Pilgrim: On Foot, Across Europe to Rome, Continuum

The state deplores the consumer approach in sport—and builds the colisea which encourage it.

1956, Soviet Survey, pages 54–55