entertainment
Americannoun
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the act of entertaining; agreeable occupation for the mind; diversion; amusement.
Solving the daily crossword puzzle is an entertainment for many.
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something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement, especially a performance of some kind.
The highlight of the ball was an elaborate entertainment.
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hospitable provision for the needs and wants of guests.
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a divertingly adventurous, comic, or picaresque novel.
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Obsolete. maintenance in service.
noun
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the act or art of entertaining or state of being entertained
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an act, production, etc, that entertains; diversion; amusement
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of entertainment
Explanation
Entertainment is amusement, usually involving a performance. The clown at a birthday party, a Broadway show, a stadium rock concert, your friends fighting over the last potato chip––these are all forms of entertainment. Entertainment is from the Old French word entretenir meaning hold together or support. It was associated with hospitality––when you entertained a guest, you were keeping them happy. From there, it came to mean amuse or distract. The entertainment is the amusement or the distraction––we talk about theatrical entertainment as shows, visual entertainment as the stuff you like to look at, and audio entertainment as mostly music.
Vocabulary lists containing entertainment
Media Literacy - High School
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Media Literacy - Middle School
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Media Literacy - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"Somehow magically, someone created an outdoor garden at a lush countryside retreat," he wrote, according to Entertainment Weekly.
From Barron's • Jul. 4, 2026
“This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” said Sid Shuman, Sony’s senior director of content communications.
From MarketWatch • Jul. 2, 2026
During his tenure, ownership of the team shifted from the O’Malley family to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Entertainment Group, which completed the purchase of the Dodgers in March 1998.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 1, 2026
ATG Entertainment said renaming the venue the Tom Stoppard Theatre would be a "lasting tribute... to one of the most influential playwrights in British theatre".
From BBC • Jul. 1, 2026
Entertainment was hard to come by on the streets.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
