entertainment
- 1Something done or performed to give people pleasure or amusement, such as a show, music, or a game.
Live music remains a popular form of entertainment in the city's parks.
The cruise offered endless entertainment, from comedy shows to dance classes.
UsageFor amusement in general, usually no a: a form of entertainment, plenty of entertainment. Entertainments names particular shows or events.
Note
Pleasure arrived late in this word's history. Middle English entretenement meant "support, maintenance", and the older senses of keeping people housed, paid and fed sit behind the modern one.
- 2The receiving and looking after of guests, especially with food and drink; in older use, the food or lodging given to travelers.
I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold Can in this desert place buy entertainment, Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.
c. 1598, William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”Note
This sense is hospitality, still current in phrases like entertainment expenses. Older texts show it at its plainest: a bed and a meal for whoever arrives. In Shakespeare's As You Like It, travelers ask a shepherd whether love or gold can buy entertainment, then say what they mean, somewhere to rest and feed. Robert Drury's Adventures still uses the word for the food set before him. In such texts it means a meal or lodging, never a show.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Older entertainment can mean hospitality, including food for guests or travelers. en.wiktionary.org
- In Shakespeare's As You Like It, Rosalind asks a shepherd for entertainment and explains that the travelers need somewhere to rest and eat. gutenberg.org
- Drury's Adventures uses entertainment for food he receives. gutenberg.org
- In the cited passages, entertainment means food or accommodation rather than a performance. gutenberg.org
- 3The maintenance or support given to a person or institution.
Note
In older prose it can mislead a modern reader. When Charles Dickens has a narrator ask of poor travelers, "Then they have no Entertainment?", the question is about provision, not the amusement sense.
Less common meanings
- 4Payment given to soldiers or servants; wages.
The entertainment of the general upon his first arrival was but six shillings and eight pence.
1612, John Davies, Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subduedNote
Close to the "maintenance" meaning, this is upkeep paid out as a wage to soldiers and servants. It takes of plus the person paid, as when John Davies, in his Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (1612), puts the entertainment of the general at six shillings and eight pence. Now obsolete, it should be read as salary, never as a show.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Entertainment can be followed by of and the person receiving payment. celt.ucc.ie
- John Davies wrote Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued, first published in 1612. en.wikipedia.org
- Davies gives the general's entertainment as six shillings and eight pence, referring to pay. celt.ucc.ie
- 5The taking of someone into service, or the state of being employed in another's service.
He must think us some band of strangers i' the adversary's entertainment.
1601, William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends WellNote
This sense means service in the employer's sense, not the waiter's. To be in someone's entertainment was to be in their employ or retinue. Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well has soldiers taken for strangers "i' the adversary's entertainment", meaning hired by the enemy. The possessive helps but does not settle it: in a military setting like this one, the side that owns the entertainment is the employer.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The historical sense denotes employment or admission into someone's service. en.wiktionary.org
- All's Well That Ends Well is Shakespeare's play. en.wikisource.org
- The play depicts soldiers pretending to be foreigners serving the enemy; a lord speaks the quoted line. folger.edu
- The possessive alone does not establish this meaning. For example, 'John Drum's entertainment' means rough treatment or expulsion, not employment. homepage.villanova.edu
Practice
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Origin
Middle English entretenement ("support, maintenance") was taken from Old French entretenement and is connected with "entertain"; in its makeup it is "entertain" plus the suffix "-ment".