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# circus

«circus» in Mova's school dictionary: **a travelling show, often in a big tent, with acrobats…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a circus, circuses)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A circus is a travelling show, often in a big tent, with acrobats, clowns, jugglers and sometimes trained animals. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#m1)

2) (UK) A circus is a round open place where several streets meet, as in Piccadilly Circus in London. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#m2)

3) (informal) A circus is a noisy, messy or silly situation: «The kitchen was a circus this morning.» [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In stories the circus brings excitement and colourful characters; maths problems count tickets, seats and acts. In everyday speech, calling something a circus means it is chaotic. Phrases: «go to the circus», «circus tent», «circus act», «a media circus».

### examples

- We went to the circus and saw a juggler. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#x1)
- The circus tent holds 400 people; 275 seats are full — how many are empty? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#x2)
- The clown fell over and everyone laughed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#x3)
- Piccadilly Circus is busy with traffic. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#x4)
- With five kids and a dog, breakfast is a circus. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#x5)
- The circus came to town for a week. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#x6)
- I’d much rather go back to Kansas with you and be in a circus again.” [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/#x7)

### note

Plural: circuses. Countable. From Latin for «circle», so a road circus is round. Many circuses today have no animals.

### In the corpora

- [For fun, crowds cheered chariot teams at the Circus Maximus, like football fans, and watched gladiators in the Colosseum.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/15-rome-daily-life-gladiators-latin-and-christianity/4/)
- [The Circus Maximus held perhaps 150,000 fans, who cheered for chariot teams called the Reds, Whites, Greens and Blues.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/15-rome-daily-life-gladiators-latin-and-christianity/17/)
- [Some jump from one small step to a disaster: blue hair, then tattoos, then the circus.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons/7/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «circus» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/circus/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.