Entertaiment
From the Old French entretenir, meaning “to hold together,” entertainment came to mean something that diverts or amuses, a distraction or diversion: a clown at a birthday party, a Broadway show, your friends fighting over the last potato chip, even a political speech can be entertaining. But the word also carries with it an association of hospitality: to entertain is to provide for the comfort and pleasure of others. It’s possible that this hospitable sense may help explain why entertainments are so diverse, and how they evolve to suit the tastes of individuals and of societies as a whole: activities that once served practical purposes, such as archery or hunting, now exist as spectator sports, and what we think of as art has become a global form of entertainment.