the.com/entertainment
Paying attention on purpose, for fun, instead of by force.
means Content or activity designed to hold your attention for pleasure rather than necessity.
from From French entretenir, 'to hold together, maintain, keep up' — itself from Latin inter- ('among, between') plus tenere ('to hold'), the root also behind 'tenant' and 'tenacious.' The sense shifted from literally 'holding' or 'maintaining' something (like a household or a conversation) to 'keeping someone's attention occupied' — and by the 1600s, keeping an audience agreeably occupied became the main job of the word.
- original sense
- Once meant simply to maintain or support someone
- economic weight
- Global industry worth over 2 trillion dollars yearly
- oldest form
- Storytelling around fire predates written language itself
- shared root
- Entertain and maintenance come from the same Latin verb