different between gaiety vs entertainment

English

Etymology

From French gaieté, from French gai

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??e?.?.ti/, /??e?.?.ti/
• Hyphenation: gai?e?ty
• Rhymes: -e??ti

Noun

gaiety (countable and uncountable, plural gaieties)

1. (dated, uncountable) The state of being happy or merry.

2. (dated, countable) Merrymaking or festivity.

Synonyms

• (state of being happy): gayness

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• entretainment (chiefly archaic)
• intertainment (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English entretenement (“support, maintenance”), from Old French entretenement; see entertain.

Morphologically entertain +? -ment

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n.t??te?n.m?nt/
• Rhymes: -e?nm?nt

Noun

entertainment (countable and uncountable, plural entertainments)

1. An activity designed to give pleasure, enjoyment, diversion, amusement, or relaxation to an audience, no matter whether the audience participates passively as in watching opera or a movie, or actively as in games.
2. A show put on for the enjoyment or amusement of others.
3. (obsolete) Maintenance or support.
4. (obsolete) Admission into service; service.
5. (obsolete) Payment of soldiers or servants; wages.
   • Sir John Davies

     The entertainment of the general upon his first arrival was but six shillings and eight pence.

6. (obsolete) Reception; (provision of) food to guests or travellers.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 4,^[1]

     I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold

     Can in this desert place buy entertainment,

     Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.

   • 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, p. 61,^[2]

     Tho’ they cut [the beef] into long Pieces, (like Ropes) with the Hide; and dress’d, and eat it half-roasted according to their Custom, and gave it me in the same Manner; yet I thought this contemptible Food, and what a Beggar in England would not have touch’d, the most delicious Entertainment I ever met with.

Translations

Further reading

• entertainment in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• entertainment in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• entertainment at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• entretainment