Meanings
entrainment1
plural entrainments
- archaiccountableuncountableEnthusiasm, liveliness; impulsiveness.First known use 1836
For Longinus, it is the rhetor’s public capacity to bring out the whole audience’s entrainment to sublimity that is most important.
2005, Laurence Paul Hemming, “Rhetor and Rhetoric”, in Postmodernity’s Transcending: Devaluing God, London: SCM Press, →ISBN, page 534 more examples
Carlo Antonio Bertinazzi, he whom the French stage knows under the name of Carlin, was the gayest of all comedians; he knew a thousand ways of amusing his audience, and would make them die with pleasure and laughter by his affecting performance of the Vingt-six infortunes d’ Arlequin; the entrainment of his gaiety and bonhomie were everywhere extolled.
1841 May 26, “Hay-Market Theatre”, in The Theatrical Observer; and Daily Bills of the Play, number 6060, London: E[dward] & J[ohn] Thomas, […], →OCLC, front pageA philosopher, through indolence and carelessness before the Revolution, superstitious afterwards, through weakness and entrainment [translating entraînement], he threatened the Revolution with his sword from a distance.
1847, Alphonse de Lamartine, translated by H[enry] T[homas] Ryde, History of the Girondists; or, Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution. […], volume I, London: Henry G[eorge] Bohn, […], →OCLC, book XIV, section XVAt page 60, and elsewhere, the English general is only spoken of as a mere nobody, carried away resistlessly by the “entrainments” [translating entraînements] around him.
1863 March, “Kinglake’s Invasion of the Crimea”, in William Harrison Ainsworth, editor, The New Monthly Magazine, volume CXXVII, number DVII, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, footnote, page 374The reviewer had to recognize [Thomas Babington] Macaulay’s talents; the entrainment of his picturesque, vivid, and pregnant execution could not be escaped.
1925 October, Walter Graham, “Some Infamous Tory Reviews”, in Edwin Greenlaw, editor, Studies in Philology, volume XXII, number 4, Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, section VIII, page 513 - Any of several processes in which a solid or liquid is put into motion by a fluid.
- countableuncountableThe mixing of out flowing river water and underlying seawater.First known use 1892
- countableuncountablebiologyThe alignment of an organism's circadian rhythm to an external rhythm in its environment.
entrainment2
plural entrainments
- countableuncountableThe act of someone or something boarding or being put aboard a train.First known use 1881
The experimental line at Chatham is invaluable in practising entrainments, so that the work shall be performed in the shortest possible time.
1899 August, Marcus Tindal, “‘Sappers of the Queen.’ Some Account of the Work of the Royal Engineer Corps.”, in Pearson’s Magazine, volume VIII, number 44, London: C. Arthur Pearson Ltd., […], →OCLC, page 2504 more examples
An experienced officer will be placed in charge at each station which is to be used for the entrainment of volunteers near Windsor and at the Waterloo and Paddington Termini in London.
1881 July 9, “The Present and Previous Volunteer Movements. An Historical Sketch.”, in Western Mail, number 3795, Cardiff, →OCLC, page 3, column 7On the day of entrainment the chief of the entrainment point, together with the chief of the deportation train and of the convoying military forces of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, shall examine the railway cars provided in order to see that they are supplied with everything necessary, […]
1949, “Procedure for Entrainment”, in K. Pelékis [pseudonym], edited by Rumsaitis, Genocide: Lithuania’s Threefold Tragedy, Germany: […] „Venta”, →OCLC, Appendix 6 (Instructions Regarding the Procedure for Carrying Out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. […] (Translated from the Original Russian Text in London).), page 277Five mornings a week the earl took the 9:55 train up to town, and it was well worth the mile walk from our house to the station to witness his entrainment.
1954, E[dward] Alexander Powell, chapter 2, in Adventure Road, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →LCCN, →OCLC, page 21The kidnapping charge focused attention on the march to the railroad station, the entrainment of victims, and their horrifying ride out of Hungary.
2005, Stephan Landsman, “Imre Finta”, in Crimes of the Holocaust: The Law Confronts Hard Cases (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights), Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 214
Origin
entrainment · noun
- Frenchentraînement
- Englishentrainment
Partly from French entraînement and partly entrain + -ment.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →entrainment · noun
From entrain (“to board or put aboard a train”) + -ment.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Norwegian medrivning
- medrivningmixing of fluids
Romanian antrenare
- antrenaremixing of fluids
Spanish trajino, trajín
- trajinomixing of fluids
- trajínmixing of fluids
- arrastramientomixing of fluids
- arrastremixing of fluids
Cite this entry
entrainment. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/entrainment
“entrainment.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/entrainment. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “entrainment,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/entrainment.
Source: entrainment on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.