Definition of "spectacle" []

• Something that can be seen or viewed, especially something of a remarkable or impressive nature. (noun)
• A public performance or display, especially one on a large or lavish scale. (noun)
• A regrettable public display, as of bad behavior: drank too much and made a spectacle of himself. (noun)
• A pair of eyeglasses. (noun)
• Something resembling eyeglasses in shape or suggesting them in function. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I've lived in New York City long enough to expect the unexpected and keep cool in the presence of insanity, but an Orthodox Jew cold busting his human beatbox, dressed only in his skivvies and swilling Jack Daniels, still feels to me worthy of the term "spectacle.""
• "The NFL all-star showdown was played in Honolulu from 1980 through 2009 in the week after the Super Bowl but moved this year to a week before the Super Bowl and to the site of the title spectacle as an experiment."
• "John Hendrickson of the Denver Post logged into the Occupy Wall Street stream of consciousness over the weekend with a post on the newspaper's website and in the printed pages of its Sunday entertainment section, providing a little extra to what he calls the "spectacle" of the occupy movement."