English
entertainment
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈɛn.tɚˈteɪn.mənt/
Noun

entertainment

  1. An activity designed to give pleasure, enjoyment, diversion, amusement, or relaxation to an audience, no matter whether the audience participates passively as in watching opera or a movie, or actively as in games.
  2. A show put on for the enjoyment or amusement of others.
  3. (obsolete) Maintenance or support.
  4. (obsolete) Admission into service; service.
  5. (obsolete) Payment of soldiers or servants; wages.
    • Sir John Davies
      The entertainment of the general upon his first arrival was but six shillings and eight pence.
  6. (obsolete) Reception; (provision of) food to guests or travellers.
    • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 4,
      I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold
      Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
      Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.
    • 1743, Robert Drury (sailor), The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, p. 61,
      Tho’ they cut [the beef] into long Pieces, (like Ropes) with the Hide; and dress’d, and eat it half-roasted according to their Custom, and gave it me in the same Manner; yet I thought this contemptible Food, and what a Beggar in England would not have touch’d, the most delicious Entertainment I ever met with.
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