entertaining

Pluralentertainings

1. 1
   adjective

   Amusing and enjoyable; holding a person's interest in a pleasant way.

   The speaker was so entertaining that nobody glanced at their phone for an hour.

   She wrote an entertaining account of her year traveling across South America.

   Similaramusing, enjoyable, diverting, engaging, delightful

   Oppositeboring, dull, tedious, tiresome

   Note

   An adjective that grades like any other: more entertaining, most entertaining. That grading is the quickest way to tell it from the verb form, which takes an object instead. An entertaining speaker amuses, but a host entertaining guests is doing something. It sits easily before a noun, as in Phil Dawkes's "an entertaining encounter" for BBC Sport in 2011, or after be: "they could be most entertaining."

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of entertain.

   He spent the whole evening entertaining clients at a downtown restaurant.

   Entertaining a crowd that size takes weeks of careful planning.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. It is the participle in a progressive verb (she is entertaining clients) and the gerund that acts as a noun (entertaining takes planning). It carries every live meaning of entertain, not only amusement. It can mean hosting, with or without an object (they love entertaining), and considering, as in entertaining an offer or a doubt. Someone entertaining an idea is weighing it, not being amused by it.

   The board is entertaining an offer from a rival firm.

   They do a great deal of entertaining at weekends.

3. 3
   nounarchaic

   Amusement or diversion; activity provided for the enjoyment of others.

   The guests gathered in the great hall, eager for an evening of entertaining.

   His lordship spared no expense on the entertaining at his country estate.

   Note

   An older noun that could be counted and made plural. George Herbert Curteis, writing in 1889, lists a bishop's "summer entertainings and meetings," meaning separate occasions of hosting. That plural now sounds archaic. A phrase like "a lot of entertaining" still reads naturally, but as the gerund of hosting rather than as this noun. For a show or an event, entertainment is the safe modern choice.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3