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.
The first, “My Body,” dropped in 2021 and was a bestselling collection of essays exploring gender, power dynamics, sexuality and the commodification of female beauty in the modeling and entertainment industries.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 11, 2026
He recalls Grampian making a wide range of programmes, from award-winning documentaries on the oil industry to light entertainment.
From BBC • Jul. 10, 2026
Many accounts were opted in by default, making their public photos available to the tool and setting off alarm in the entertainment industry.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 9, 2026
The German self-regulatory body for film ratings declined to assign an age rating for home entertainment release and gave it a rating for theatrical release that made it permitted for ages 18 and up.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 9, 2026
On Friday nights, for entertainment, we would often help Mama bake a cake or we would test our minds by working puzzles or playing checkers and other table games.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
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.
