English · Word pair Attested

bread and circuses

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Material benefits and entertainment employed by rulers to keep the masses happy and docile.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

lợi ích vật chất và giải trí được sử dụng bởi những người cai trị để giữ cho dân chúng hạnh phúc và ngoan ngoãn

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

So with football and politics as the bread and circuses of our decadent empire — whither religion?

In the old world continual distraction has become the major weapon of control — bread and circuses — or the modern equivalent: football, royalty, and fashion.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed on Wikipedia “Irreversible binomial” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29). Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).

Topics: Food

Common questions

What does “bread and circuses” mean?

Material benefits and entertainment employed by rulers to keep the masses happy and docile.

Is “bread and circuses” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.