The Daily Word
Entertaiment is entertainment on any scale: a clown at a party, a Broadway show, your friends fighting over the last potato chip–all are forms of entertainment. It’s a hospitable activity–keeping people happy and distracted. It comes from the medieval Latin verb intertenere, which means “to hold inside.” Click on the buttons below to find synonyms and similar words.
Bates and Ferri (2010) define entertainment as consumer activity understood objectively, that entails communication between text and audience, involves an external stimulus, offers pleasure, and requires an audience to be passive.
Some activities that were once necessary skills, such as archery or fencing, have developed into serious sports and professions for their participants, while entertaining audiences worldwide. These examples illustrate the changing nature of entertainment, which can transform from something necessary to society into a form of passive enjoyment for consumers.