chautauqua

plural chautauquas

1. alternativeAlternative form of Chautauqua.

   As a boy, Sandburg was thrilled by the circus, the chautauqua, the minstrel show, the theater.

   1988 June 10, James Krohe Jr., “Reading: Sandburg and Steichen”, in Chicago Reader, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2016

1. A town and lake resort community in Chautauqua County, New York.

plural Chautauquas · alternative chautauqua

1. historicalA kind of travelling tent-show which used to move across America featuring popular talks.

   1 more example

   What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua—that's the only name I can think of for it—like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer.

   1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, chapter 1, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN, part I, page 15