Plain English Meaning
A patch of special crumbly material at the end of a runway that crushes under an aircraft's wheels to slow it down and stop it if it runs off the end.
Full Definition
A bed of crushable, lightweight cellular concrete blocks installed at the end of a runway, designed to safely decelerate an aircraft that overruns the runway by collapsing under the weight of the aircraft's tires and absorbing its forward energy.
Context Anchor
Pilots encounter this term in runway safety discussions, airport diagrams, preflight planning, and briefings for airports that have an EMAS bed beyond a runway end.
Derivation
"Engineered materials" because the concrete blocks are purpose-built to crush at a predictable rate, and "arresting" from the Latin arrestare meaning "to stop or hold back." The same gives us "arrest" in everyday speech. The name describes exactly what it does: stopping the aircraft using specially designed materials.