Entertaiment is a collection of essays that examines the development and meaning of the word. It is a useful collection to anyone interested in the way words change, develop and evolve through use.
The word entertainment is derived from the Latin intertenere, or “to hold inside.” The suffix -entertainment is an abbreviation of the Indo-European root ten.
According to Bates and Ferri (2010), entertainment can be defined as activity understood objectively, encompassing communication between text and audience from an external stimulus that offers pleasure, requires an audience to exist and occurs in a passive form. This definition does not imply that there are no serious purposes associated with entertainment, however. For example, activities that were once necessary skills have developed into sports with significant professional appeal and global competitions, but they remain entertainment to their participants.
