Whether it’s the clown at your kid’s birthday party, the Broadway show or stadium rock concert, or your friends fighting over the last potato chip, entertaiment is amusement, distraction, and sometimes even an escape from our daily cares. Entertainment, from the old French entretenir, was originally associated with hospitality–when you entertained a guest, it meant keeping them happy. Today, we usually think of theatrical entertainment as shows, visual entertainment as the stuff you like to look at, and audio entertainment as mostly music. Click on a collocation for more examples.
This article is part of our special report on Entertainment.