sideshow

[ sahyd-shoh ]

noun

1. a minor show or exhibition in connection with a principal one, as at a circus.
2. any subordinate event or matter.

sideshow

/ ˈsaɪdˌʃəʊ /

noun

1. a small show or entertainment offered in conjunction with a larger attraction, as at a circus or fair
2. a subordinate event or incident

Word History and Origins

Origin of sideshow¹

An Americanism dating back to 1840–50

Example Sentences

Its resolution will determine whether the party has a chance of regaining power or whether it will be an increasingly irrelevant sideshow in a country dominated by the left.

From Washington Post

There’s an overlay of international politics involved, with a sideshow storyline about the Justice Department allegedly approaching Gaetz’s father, a former Florida politician, about funding a mission to find an ex-FBI agent missing in Iran.

From TIme

Right now, investors don’t want to see any noise or sideshows from Tesla and Musk.

From Washington Post

Irving has been an unreliable co-star so far this season, alternating between fantastic scoring outbursts and confusing sideshows.

From Washington Post

On the old web, designed to deliver hyper-targeted ads to unimaginably large audiences, creators have been a sideshow.

From Fortune

But drinking seems like a sideshow in these joints, not the main event.

From The Daily Beast

The runoff has turned into a macabre political sideshow filled with grotesque attacks and ugly accusations.

From The Daily Beast

The natural gas boom has become little more than a sideshow.

From The Daily Beast

The trial of Morsi, now due to begin February 1, will be just a sideshow.

From The Daily Beast

But the shutdown is something of a sideshow, provoked by impatient conservatives who wanted confrontation.

From The Daily Beast

"Biting off live chickens' heads, in a sideshow wild-man act," Hideyoshi O'Leary supplied.

From Project Gutenberg

Hagen got a quick mental flash of a barker outside a circus sideshow: He walks like a man.

From Project Gutenberg

Unfortunately for posterity, Stieffel did not record his impressions of this little-known sideshow of the Civil War.

From Project Gutenberg

To make it take an hour he'd have to be ossified, wouldn't he, like the feller in the circus sideshow?

From Project Gutenberg

The sideshow got a dime of hers before the big show started and again after it ended.

From Project Gutenberg