circus n.
1. a commotion, an adventure.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Innocents Abroad 358: Ashore, it [i.e. Constantinople] was – well, it was an eternal circus. | |
| Sazerac Lying Club 51: The ba’r was too clus’ to me [...] The other boys was up in the trees, waitin’ to see the circus open, and hollerin’ to me to grab that gun. | |
| Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 34: What kind of a circus have you been having, and what do you mean by destroying wine that way? | |
| Red Badge of Courage (1964) 68: I was out there [...] An’, Lord, what a circus! An’, b’jiminey, I got shot. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ballygullion 36: In troth ’twas a regular circus. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | diary 14 Nov. 🌐 Someone, I think it fell to us somehow, started a circus today, & found the Turks eager to pay attention. | |
| It’s a Racket! 222: circus—To harry a victim; e.g. ‘Give him the circus’. | |
| Female Convict (1960) 31: But rarely a day went by without a ‘circus’, as the prisoners called it. | |
| Long Good-Bye 49: All they’ll care about is the circus they can make of the trial. | |
| Flesh Peddlers (1964) 345: It was the cruelty of his methods, the imperial right he felt to make a circus when he dismissed you. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | (con. 1940s) Battle Lost and Won 237: Bloody circus here since that new chap took over. | |
| Fort Apache, The Bronx 93: It’s a fucken circus. | |
| Powder 75: It’d be hard to find time for the studio once the circus had started. | |
| Keepers of Truth 270: I got out by Ronny’s house, and shit, it was a circus. | |
| Joe Country [ebook] Once the bodies were found there’d be a circus, of course. |
2. a humiliating example.
| Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 123: My chum said if his Pa made such a circus of himself he would sandbag him. |
3. a live sex show.
 | implied in circus house | |
| Commercialized Prostitution in N.Y. City 15: In the more exclusive parlor houses ‘circuses’ or ‘shows’ are also given by way of stimulating business. These exhibitions are [...] vulgar. | |
| Anecdota Americana I 27: At a stag party on upper Broadway a negress was giving a ‘circus.’ She lay stripped on a matting and went through all the eye-rolling, bosom-heaving contortions of a woman with a lusty man screwing her. | |
| Babe Gordon (1934) 29: They worked the streets [...] waiting for downtown explorers that needed a ‘steer’ to dope or wanted to be led to a ‘circus’. | |
| (con. 1880s) Gangs of Chicago (2002) 119: She boasted also that no man could imagine an act of perversion or degeneracy which she and her strumpets would not perform — and proved it at the ‘circus nights’ which were held two or three times a month. | |
| et al. DAUL 44/2: Circus. A group performance of diversified degeneracy staged for a private audience. | |
| Cast the First Stone 252: circus An exhibition of sexual, orgiastic acts, orginally performed for customers of a whorehouse; now any such exhibition. | |
| in Hellhole 217: [of lesbians] When they needed to, femmes and butches [...] picked up tricks and put on circuses for them [...] The tricks were old. Their dicks went hard watching us. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. | |
| Lowspeak. |
4. (Aus.) one’s own affair, one’s business.
| S.F. Call 22 Nov. 8/2: This is my circus [...] If you can’t do anythin’ better than mix yourself in family affairs, why I’ll I’ll help you get over the habit . | |
| Aussie (France) VII Sept. 7/1: ‘Here, take a pull, Yank, this is my circus,’ interrupted Dinkum. | |
| Public Burning (1979) 100: Listen, this is my circus, you old coot. |
5. a fake fit or seizure, performed in the hope of obtaining an injection of narcotics from a sympathetic doctor.
| ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 120/1: circus. A feigned spasm enacted in public in the hope that a physician will administer narcotics. | |
| Narcotics Lingo and Lore. |
6. a courtroom, a trial.
| (ref. to 1920s) Over the Wall 28: At the circus, they appointed me a lousy ambulance chaser who was a scrammer. |
7. a place.
| Neon Wilderness (1986) 193: We put up the whole circus at night, under fire. |
8. a company, group or set of people acting or performing together, esp. in sport or entertainment, e.g. the Grand Prix circus.
| USA Confidential xi: The effects of the Kefauver television circus are negligible. | |
| (con. early 1950s) Valhalla 246: Let’s get this circus hitched up. | |
| Awopbop. (1970) 199: Then the whole circus would roll back to London. | |
| Tourist Season (1987) 135: Jesús Bernal yearned to abandon Skip Wiley’s circus and rejoin his old gang of dedicated extortionists, bombers, and firebugs. | |
| Indep. Mag. 29 May 12: When the John and Yoko circus started to roll. |
9. an orgy; sexual excess.
| In the Life 156: Circus: sexual performance involving more than one participant, usually a small group. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
Pertaining to sex
In compounds
a woman who is willing to indulge in sex shows or acts of ‘perverted’ sex.
| Imabelle 141: I’ll do anything. I’ll be your woman, or a circus girl. | |
| Rage in Harlem (1969) 142: [as 1957]. |
(US) a brothel, esp. one featuring sex shows.
| Chicago Life 27 Apr. in Gangs of Chicago (1940) 133: The circus house, 70 Wells Street, is drawing crowded houses and performances take place any hour of the day and night. | |
| (con. 1890s) Gangs of Chicago (2002) 130: A ‘circus house’ run by Kitty Plant [...] which was notorious for exhibitions in which women and animals participated. | |
| Cotton Comes to Harlem (1967) 20: They’ve knocked over Big Liz’s circus house. |
sexual intercourse involving as many variations as possible .
| Pimp 57: We made ‘circus’ love until our nerve ends shrieked. | |
| Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words. | |
| Everything2.com 20 May 🌐 For Iceberg Slim and his contemporaries, to engage in circus love was jive for running the gamut of all sexual perversions. A kinky trick might pay extra for a chance to get some circus love with a fly whore. It was also important to give your own whores some circus love now and again, just to remind them of who’s in charge. |
(US gay) one who enjoys watching two other men have sex.
| (con. 1940s) Hold Tight (1990) 156: That circus queen was sure one sick woman. |
(US) one who participates in orgies.
| In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 172: The rain no longer kept the hustlers and the pimps, the circus riders and hussies off the streets. There were livings to be made. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(US tramp) fleas, lice, crabs, bedbugs.
| Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ) 3 July 12/2: The cootie, the circus bee and the shirt rabbit infest the fellow who doesn’t take a bath. | |
| ‘Vocab. of Bums’ in AS IV:5 339: Circus bees—Lice, crabs, and bed bugs. | |
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 51: Circus Bees. – Body lice, frequent enough about the smaller circuses and tent shows, in many of which the roustabouts and labourers are forced to ‘double up’ or sleep two in a berth, and where cleanliness is next to impossible. [...] Circus Squirrels. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 794: circus bees [...] circus squirrels – Body lice. |
(US) a determined effort, a good try.
| Asphalt Jungle 171 : Give it a circus try. I’m counting on you. |
In phrases
(US und.) to defraud a drunk by taking a large-denomination note and returning the change in counterfeit money.
| Your Broadway & Mine 10 Feb. [synd. col.] His bill was $19. [...] The owner [...] instructed, ‘Give that bum the circus,’ which [...] meant that they took his $50 bill, deducted his fee and handed him his change in counterfeit money. |