entertainment
Americannoun
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entertainments
plural
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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.
See Examples For:
Kim said he wants USC to build strong partnerships with Los Angeles industries, including entertainment, biotechnology, sports and “the new space economy.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Sure, that’s in part to maintain a competitive edge in an ever-techified entertainment industry.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
With stories of monsters, aliens and time travel, “The Twilight Zone” could look like escapist entertainment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
"We remain confident that bringing Sky and ITV's media and entertainment business together will create a stronger British media," it said.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
But nineteenth-century America was full of “humbug,” a word used for the types of entertainment popularized by renowned promoter P. T. Barnum.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Today, dragons and dungeon crawls are common entertainments.
From Salon ● Jun. 24, 2026
Meghan Kobza’s “The Masquerade” unmasks the festivities of 18th-century London, where the commercial “middling sort” acquired the numbers and money to emulate the private entertainments of kings and aristocrats.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
"Christmas football was originally rooted in a wider tradition of communal entertainments," Professor Martin Johnes of Swansea University told BBC Sport.
From BBC ● Dec. 24, 2025
It can be a Nevada touring partner for those L.A. thematic entertainments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2024
In this way they meant to show the great open-air stadium in which the popular entertainments of Rome were held.
From "The Interrupted Tale" by Maryrose Wood
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
