Other forms: circuses
A circus is a travelling show under a big tent, with acrobats, clowns and, historically, animals. Run away with the circus, the circus is in town.
It is also used figuratively for any noisy, chaotic scene, usually with disapproval: a media circus, the whole thing turned into a circus. And in British place names, a circus is a circular junction — Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus — which is the oldest sense and confuses every visitor who arrives expecting acrobats. The modern circus has largely dropped animal acts, and contemporary circus is a recognised art form with no tent involved at all.
1nouncircusA travelling show with acrobats, clowns and performances in a ring.
“The circus sets up on the common every August.”
2nounnoisyA noisy and chaotic scene.
“The trial turned into a media circus.”
3nounplaceIn British place names, a circular road junction.
“Change at Oxford Circus for the Victoria line.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
circus is a show, or a chaotic scene.
Latin circus meant a ring, and the Roman circus was an oval track for chariot racing — the Circus Maximus was a stadium, not a show. The modern circus was named for its ring when Philip Astley laid one out in London in 1768, reviving a word that had been idle for a thousand years.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)ker- (turn)
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)ker- — to bend, turn
Ancient Greek
κρίκος
Latin
circus — ring, circle
Middle English
circus
English, today
circus
Built from
From Middle English circus, circo, from Latin circus (“ring, circle”), from Ancient Greek κρίκος, κίρκος (“ring”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)ker- (“to bend, turn”).[http://books.google.ca/books?id=4IHbQgz1n
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA