the.com/circus
a controlled riot where gravity, lions, and clowns all agreed to behave for one night
means A traveling show of acrobats, clowns, trained animals, and daring stunts, usually performed under a big tent in a central ring.
from Straight from the Latin circus, meaning 'ring' or 'circle' — a cousin of Greek kirkos, also a ring. The Romans gave the name to their great oval arenas like the Circus Maximus, where chariots thundered around the track. Centuries later, an 18th-century English riding-master built a circular arena for trick horsemanship and revived the old word, and the ring-shaped spectacle has kept the name ever since.
- name origin
- Latin for circle, after Rome's racing arenas
- big top
- giant tents let circuses pack up and vanish overnight
- clown registry
- some clowns paint faces onto eggs to claim them
- three rings
- Barnum added rings so nobody could watch everything
- flea circus
- real fleas once pulled tiny wired carts onstage
cirque du soleil — canadian theatrical circus company founded 1984, performs in 90+ countries with 4,000+ employees
moscow state circus — russian circus founded 1971, famous for soviet-style acrobatics and animal acts in moscow