1
: a minor show offered in addition to a main exhibition (as of a circus)
2
: an incidental diversion or spectacle
Examples of sideshow in a Sentence
Their disagreement is just a political sideshow when compared to the real issues at hand.
Recent Examples on the Web
When Browning was directing and producing Freaks, then, the circus sideshow was broadly culturally legible and in interplay with cinema as an evolving part of variety entertainment.
—
JSTOR Daily, 30 Oct. 2025
The clown’s job was to offer something extraordinary to keep circus crowds in their seats and to entice sideshow visitors back to the big top for the main events.
—Time, 30 Oct. 2025
Las Vegas sportsbooks might have offered a few dozen props for a regular-season game—will a quarterback throw for more than two touchdowns, will a batter hit a home run—but these bets were mostly a sideshow.
—Danny Funt, New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2025
While docked in Florida, the troupe encounters trouble in the form of psychotic Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch), a deranged murderer with a taste for sideshow carnage.
—Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 5 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for sideshow
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JSTOR Daily, 30 Oct. 2025
The clown’s job was to offer something extraordinary to keep circus crowds in their seats and to entice sideshow visitors back to the big top for the main events.
—Time, 30 Oct. 2025
Las Vegas sportsbooks might have offered a few dozen props for a regular-season game—will a quarterback throw for more than two touchdowns, will a batter hit a home run—but these bets were mostly a sideshow.
—Danny Funt, New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2025
While docked in Florida, the troupe encounters trouble in the form of psychotic Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch), a deranged murderer with a taste for sideshow carnage.
—Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 5 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for sideshow
Cite this Entry
“Sideshow.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sideshow. Accessed 9 Nov. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
sideshow
noun
side·show
-ˌshō 
: a small show off to the side offered in addition to a main show (as of a circus)
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