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say it: SUR-kuhs
circus is a noun meaning "a travelling company of entertainers; including trained animals". It carries 6 recorded senses.
a travelling company of entertainers; including trained animals
“he ran away from home to join the circus”
a performance given by a traveling company of acrobats, clowns, and trained animals
“the children always love to go to the circus”
a frenetic disorganized (and often comic) disturbance suggestive of a large public entertainment
“it was so funny it was a circus”
“the whole occasion had a carnival atmosphere”
(antiquity) an open-air stadium for chariot races and gladiatorial games
Rome · antiquity
an arena consisting of an oval or circular area enclosed by tiers of seats and usually covered by a tent
“they used the elephants to help put up the circus”
a genus of haws comprising the harriers
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for circus come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.