1 [C] a group of entertainers, sometimes with trained animals, who perform skilful or amusing acts in a show that travels around to different places:
circus acrobats / clowns / elephants
2 (the circus) [sing.] a show performed by circus entertainers, usually in a large tent called a BIGTOP:
We took the children to the circus.
3 [sing.] (informal, disapproving) a group of people or an event that attracts a lot of attention:
A media circus surrounded the royal couple wherever they went. * the American electoral circus
4 [C] (BrE) (used in some place names) a round open area in a town where several streets meet:
Piccadilly Circus
5 [C] (in ancient Rome) a place like a big round outdoor theatre for public games, races, etc.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for circus is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is circus a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, circus is tagged as noun.
Does circus appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — circus appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.