circus

Pluralcircuses

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A troupe of entertainers that tours with its shows, usually staged in a round tent, and may feature acrobats, clowns, trained animals, and other novelty acts.

   She left home at seventeen to join a traveling circus as a trapeze artist.

   Two rival circuses set up their tents on opposite sides of the river that summer.

   UsageA circus comes to town or is in town, and people run away to join the circus.

2. 2
   chaotic scenenounfigurativelycountable

   A spectacle or a noisy fuss, or a place that is chaotic, crowded, or both.

   The trial became a media circus, with reporters camped on the courthouse steps.

   By noon the airport was a circus of delayed flights and shouting passengers.

   UsageCommon in a media circus, describing news coverage of an event that seems excessive or sensational.

   Similarspectacle, madhouse, zoo, bedlam

   Note

   Here the noise and crowding of the big top spill into ordinary life. A place can simply be a circus, too: an airport at noon, a kitchen before dinner, anywhere crowded and loud enough to feel like a show nobody is running.

3. 3
   round junctionnounUKcountable

   A round open space in a town or city where several streets meet.

   London's Oxford Circus, where Oxford Street crosses Regent Street, is one of the busiest junctions in the city.

   In Bath, the Circus is a ring of grand townhouses built around a round open space where three streets meet.

   Note

   The street-plan sense keeps the Latin meaning of the word, a ring or circle, which the traveling show keeps too in its round tent. In lower case, a circus is any round open space of this kind. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Circus comes from Latin circus, meaning ring or circle. en.wiktionary.org
   • A traveling circus traditionally performs in a circular tent. en.wiktionary.org
4. 4
   Roman arenanounhistoricalcountable

   In ancient Rome and its empire, a long open-air arena with tiered seating around a track, where chariot races were held.

   Thousands of spectators packed the circus to watch the chariots thunder around the track.

   Archaeologists have traced the outline of a Roman circus beneath the modern town.

   Note

   It is a word for Roman history, used of ancient Rome's racing grounds rather than of anything built since. Old English had its own name for such a place, hringsetl, literally "ring-seat", made from the word that became ring, a distant cousin of the Latin circus that also names the traveling show.

Showing meanings only. Show all 7