Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SPEC'TA-CLE, n. [Fr. from L. spectaculum, from specto, to behold; specio, to see; It. spettacolo.]

1. A show; something exhibited to view; usually, some thing presented to view as extraordinary, or something that is beheld as unusual and worthy of special notice. Thus we call things exhibited for amusement, public spectacle: as the combats of gladiators in ancient Rome. We are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and men. – 1 Cor. iv.
2. Any thing seen; a sight. A drunkard is a shocking spectacle.
3. Spectacles, in the plural, glasses to assist the sight.
4. Figuratively, something that aids the intellectual sight. Shakspeare – needed not the spectacles of books to read nature. – Dryden.