Etymology

entertainment

en·ter·tain·ment
E1N1T1E1R1T1A1I1N1M3E1N1T1

Today it means: 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. Full definition →

Middle English entretenement ← Old French entretenement
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The story

  1. Old French · derived fromentretenement
  2. Middle English · inherited fromentretenement“support, maintenance”
  3. English todayentertainment

From Middle English entretenement (“support, maintenance”), from Old French entretenement; see entertain. Morphologically entertain + -ment.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.