Other forms: arcades
An arcade is a hall full of coin-operated machines you play on. Rows of lit-up screens, a change machine that eats your note, one claw grabber that never quite holds on to the toy.
The older arcade is a piece of architecture: a covered walkway with a row of arches along one side, and then any covered row of shops — the arcade behind the town hall, with its glass roof and its shoe repairer. The two meanings are one word, because the first game halls opened in exactly those covered walkways. "Arcade game" and "arcade machine" are the fixed phrases, and as an adjective arcade means bright, fast and not remotely realistic: arcade racing, arcade physics. Nothing to do with Arcadia.
1nounarcadeA place filled with coin-operated game machines.~89%
“We spent the whole afternoon in the arcade on the pier.”
2nouncoveredA covered passage or row of shops, often with arches along one side.~9%
“The bookshop is in the arcade behind the town hall.”
3nounheldA row of arches held up on columns.~2%
“The cloister has a stone arcade running down all four sides.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 23 sentences found in the wild and placed 23 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
arcade is a covered place, or a hall of games.
An arcade began as architecture. Italian arcata meant the arch of a bridge, from Latin arcus, "an arc", and English took it first for a row of arches and then for the covered walkways built under them. The game halls moved into those walkways and kept the name. It has no connection with Arcadia.
Latin
arcus — an arc
Italian
arcata — the arch of a bridge
French
arcade
English, today
arcade
From arcade. French arcade, from Italian arcata (“the arch of a bridge”), from Latin arcus (“an arc”). Not etymologically related to Arcadia.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA