Entertaiment is a diverse and multifaceted universe that caters to a vast range of emotions and intellectual engagement. It offers everything from escapism to catharsis, and from intellectual challenge to cognitive growth. It is a dynamic field, able to cross over into different media and evolve with technological progress. This flexibility is what makes it such a fascinating object of study, and has enabled it to become the enduring legacy of many of our most familiar cultural forms. Click on a collocation to see more examples.
This article is part of our ongoing series on etymology and word origins. For more articles, see the Index of American English articles on etymology.