The clown at the birthday party, a Broadway show, your friends fighting over the last potato chip: entertainment is all around us. The word comes from the French entretenir, referring to hospitality, and it has come to mean keeping people amused or distracted. It can include all sorts of performances: visual (such as art or architecture), audio, and textual. Entertainment has evolved with technology, and its themes, images, and structures often cross over different media. Click on a collocation to see more examples.
This article was originally published in May 2018. It is updated periodically. Copyright 2018 by Cambridge University Press.