Dictionary

sideshow en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈsaɪdˌʃoʊ/ (General-American)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *seh₁-der. Proto-Germanic *sīdaz Proto-Germanic *sīdǭ Old English sīde Middle English side English side English show English sideshow From side + show.

Meanings

1. A minor attraction at a larger event such as a circus, fair or music festival.
   • 1999 November 8, Frank Hayes, The Back Page: The main event, Computerworld, page 86, And IT people dismiss IT′s impact because, hey, we like being a sideshow to the real action.
   • 1972 October 14, Henry Johnston, U.S. Tune Wins Rio Festival, Billboard, page 64, Sideshows for foreign guests included one provided by Philips manager Andre Midani with his chief recording artists including Chico Buarque, Jorge Ben, Gal Costa Quintato, and Violado.
   • 1999, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Year Book, Australia, Number 81, page 349, Other recreation services, including amusement parks or arcades, sideshows, circuses and agricultural shows, accounted for another 666 businesses. These businesses employed 10,318 persons and a further 3,518 volunteers.
   • They taught the twins to play saxophone and transferred them from the sideshow to vaudeville. 2005, Joe Nickell, Secrets of the Sideshows, page 126:
   • Don′t miss the rusty relics dredged up from the original pier, and the spooky old sideshow machines. 2009, Charles Rawlings-Way, Meg Worby, Lindsay Brown, Paul Harding, Central Australia: Adelaide to Darwin, Lonely Planet, page 63:
   • In Australia he busked (singing on street corners), steeplejacked, was a drover and sheep shearer, did motor bike stunts in sideshows and even painted the Sydney Harbor^([sic]) Bridge. 2002, Steve Evans, Ron Middlebrook, Cowboy Guitars, page 146:
   • Entertainment features and sideshows enhanced attendance. 2006, Lynda Mannik, Canadian Indian Cowboys in Australia: Representation, Rodeo, and the RCMP at the Royal Easter Show, 1939, page 13:
2. (figuratively) An incidental spectacle that diverts attention from a larger concern.
   • Far from learning from the failures of ‘economic rationalism,’ the Liberals want us to swallow more of the snake oil medicine while diverting our attention to the consumption tax sideshow. 1997, Frank Stilwell, “One Nation For Whom?”, in Michael Costa, Mark Hearn, editors, Reforming Australia's Unions: Insights from Southland Magazine, page 244:
   • An emergency brake to limit in-work benefits for EU migrants is a “sideshow” that will fail to reduce the number of arrivals to the UK, Alan Johnson has said. 2016 February 4, Nicholas Watt, quoting Alan Johnson, “Migrant benefits limit is sideshow in EU debate, says Alan Johnson”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2022:
   • Even the reality shows focused on addiction, like “Intervention,” “Rehab With Dr. Drew” (thankfully canceled) or that show where people have bizarre addictions like eating chalk or scouring powder, have done almost nothing to educate Americans. All they’ve really achieved is keeping addiction an oddity, a sideshow. 2013 July 19, Kristen Johnston, “Turning Addiction Into a Sideshow”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2019:
3. (US, slang) An incident in which drivers block traffic to perform stunts like donuts and burnouts for an extended period of time.
   • Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a law in October threatening a six-month suspension of a driver’s license for participating in a sideshow, even as a spectator. […] Since the emergence of sideshows in Oakland in the late 1980s, successive mayors have railed against them. 2022 September 4, Bradley Berman, “In Street Takeovers, Young Stunt Drivers Outmaneuver the Police”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2023:
   • The spontaneous street party is the center of Oakland's recently developing Hyphy culture, but has a long history in Oakland car culture and hip hop. A sideshow is essentially a spontaneous street party in which one might “ghostride the whip” (get out while driving), “gas brake dip,” or even “scrape” (spin donuts in the middle of the street). 2009, Mickey Hess, editor, Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide, volume 1, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 274:
   • But a bodega owner in the area said that crime seemed to be rising, and that at night, the neighborhood became a backdrop for drug use and occasional sideshows. 2023 April 7, Kate Conger, Shawn Hubler, “Stabbing of Cash App Creator Raises Alarm, and Claims of ‘Lawless’ San Francisco”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 11 Apr 2023:
   • On July 3, 2016, at 10:35pm, Sergeant Cleveland and Officer Henderson (“the Officers”) were on patrol near Fullerton, California looking for illegal street racing and “sideshows,” events where streets are blocked off for drivers to perform unlawful maneuvers like burnouts and donuts. […] During their patrol, the Officers found an approximately twenty-car sideshow taking place in the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet parking lot. 2021 January, Kim McLane Wardlaw writing for the Ninth Circuit, Villanueva v. Cleveland, archived from the original on 21 Jun 2025, page 5:

Forms

Deriveds

sideshowman · sideshow alley

Translations (4)

de Nebenattraktion (minor attraction at a larger event) · de Nebenschauplatz (minor attraction at a larger event) · mi mataraharaha (minor attraction at a larger event) · de Beiprogramm (minor attraction at a larger event)