"circus act" meaning in All languages combined

See circus act on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: circus acts [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} circus act (plural circus acts)
  1. A performance typical of a circus, such as tightrope walking or fire eating.
    Sense id: en-circus_act-en-noun-3yRMcssQ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 88 12 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 91 9 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 93 7
  2. (figuratively) Anything absurd or convoluted; a rigmarole. Tags: figuratively
    Sense id: en-circus_act-en-noun-JNhOKyjB

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "circus acts",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "circus act (plural circus acts)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "88 12",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "91 9",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "93 7",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A performance typical of a circus, such as tightrope walking or fire eating."
      ],
      "id": "en-circus_act-en-noun-3yRMcssQ",
      "links": [
        [
          "performance",
          "performance"
        ],
        [
          "tightrope walking",
          "tightrope walking"
        ],
        [
          "fire eating",
          "fire eating"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
              24
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2007, C. R. Truitt, Messengers from the West Mountain, page 238:",
          "text": "“What kind of circus act is this, Adams?” the Mayor shouted.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              89,
              99
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2011, Timothy Brown, Civil Partnership, page 172:",
          "text": "It's like those women who go to gay bars on a hen night because for them, we're a bloody circus act and it's a story to tell on their wedding day […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything absurd or convoluted; a rigmarole."
      ],
      "id": "en-circus_act-en-noun-JNhOKyjB",
      "links": [
        [
          "absurd",
          "absurd"
        ],
        [
          "convoluted",
          "convoluted"
        ],
        [
          "rigmarole",
          "rigmarole"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) Anything absurd or convoluted; a rigmarole."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "circus act"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "circus acts",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "circus act (plural circus acts)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A performance typical of a circus, such as tightrope walking or fire eating."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "performance",
          "performance"
        ],
        [
          "tightrope walking",
          "tightrope walking"
        ],
        [
          "fire eating",
          "fire eating"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
              24
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2007, C. R. Truitt, Messengers from the West Mountain, page 238:",
          "text": "“What kind of circus act is this, Adams?” the Mayor shouted.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              89,
              99
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2011, Timothy Brown, Civil Partnership, page 172:",
          "text": "It's like those women who go to gay bars on a hen night because for them, we're a bloody circus act and it's a story to tell on their wedding day […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything absurd or convoluted; a rigmarole."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "absurd",
          "absurd"
        ],
        [
          "convoluted",
          "convoluted"
        ],
        [
          "rigmarole",
          "rigmarole"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) Anything absurd or convoluted; a rigmarole."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "circus act"
}

Download raw JSONL data for circus act meaning in All languages combined (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-01 using wiktextract (85b9f46 and 1b6da77). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.