Arena

/ə-ˈrē-nə/

[ UNIX ]

n. The area of memory attached to a process by 'brk(2)' and 'sbrk(2)' and used by 'malloc(3)' as dynamic storage.

So named from a semi-mythical 'malloc: corrupt arena' message supposedly emitted when some early versions became terminally confused.

See overrun screw, aliasing bug, memory leak, smash the stack.