divertissement
Americannoun
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a diversion or entertainment.
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Music. divertimento.
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a short ballet or other performance serving as an interlude in a play, opera, etc.
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a program consisting of such performances.
noun
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a brief entertainment or diversion, usually between the acts of a play
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music
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a fantasia on popular melodies; potpourri
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a piece or pieces written to be played during the intervals in a play, opera, etc
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another word for divertimento
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Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of divertissement
1720–30; < French, equivalent to divertisse- (stem of divertir to divert ) + -ment -ment
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:
This 1898 divertissement by Marius Petipa, to the melodious music of Alexander Glazunov, is accented with moves shaped by Hungarian folk dance and has long been a staple of various classical ballet companies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 18, 2026
The loveliest expression of these is in the second act, where the enchanted forest is replaced by a pure-dance divertissement.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 10, 2022
He is right to call “Optional Family” a divertissement: The 10-minute work for three dancers is amusing, well crafted and intriguing.
From New York Times ● May 19, 2021
This stitched-together divertissement, complete with dance sequences and musical interludes, opens itself up to alterations, rearrangements and modern liberties.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2016
There was to be a grand dinner, and then our music-master, Mr. 13-04, would lead a band and singers in a brief operatic divertissement, delectable to the taste of His Lordship.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
He followed it with a succession of intensely theatrical divertissements, often revolving around unexpected intellectual conceits or bizarre juxtapositions and featuring brilliant dialogue, puns, repartee, double meanings and misunderstandings.
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2025
And the divertissements, a parade of showcase dances that are a staple of classical ballet, were inserted right after Juliet takes the potion: “the worst possible moment,” Mr. Morrison said.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2018
To prove he was worth his salt in card-sharking, Fallon asked Reynolds to engage in a friendly game of Slapjack, yet another one of Fallon’s twisted divertissements.
From Time ● Sep. 22, 2015
Yet most of the dancing is in act two, where Clara and the rescued Nutcracker Prince/Nephew have been whisked away to the Kingdom of Sweets to be rewarded by a feast of exotic divertissements.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 18, 2012
In the space of fourteen years Lulli produced twenty operas, or divertissements, of which the best, perhaps, were "Alceste," 1674, "Thesée," 1675, "Amadis de Gaule," 1684, and "Roland," 1685.
From A Popular History of the Art of Music From the Earliest Times Until the Present by Mathews, W. S. B. (William Smythe Babcock)
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.
