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Entertainment   /ˌɛntərtˈeɪnmənt/  /ˌɛnərtˈeɪnmənt/   Listen
Entertainment

noun
1.
An activity that is diverting and that holds the attention.  Synonym: amusement.



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"Entertainment" Quotes from Famous Books



... I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. My always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling to part with me; so that, when I talk'd of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... to Dr. Swift, somewhere about 1730, says,—"I have more fruit-trees and kitchen-garden than you have any thought of; nay, I have good melons and pine-apples of my own growth." Nor was this a small boast; for Lady Wortley Montague, describing her entertainment at the table of the Elector of Hanover, in 1716, speaks of "pines" as a fruit she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... carried and set upon the carpet under the tent. As the final preparation, about the provisions he laid three pieces of silk cloth, used among refined people of the East to cover the knees of guests while at table—a circumstance significant of the number of persons who were to partake of his entertainment—the number he was awaiting. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... and recommended as a closet piece [i.e., for private reading], to recreate an intelligent mind in a vacant hour: for vacant the reader must be, from every strong prepossession, in order to relish an entertainment, quod nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum, which cannot be enjoyed to the degree it deserves, but by those of the most polite Taste among Scholars, the best Breeding among Gentlemen, and the least acquainted with sensual Pleasure among ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... Somerville they were seized upon by a great desire for the salvation of their children. That evening the children were going off for a gay party, and my grandmother said to the children, "When you get all ready for the entertainment, come into my room; I have something very important to tell you." After they were all ready they came into my grandmother's room, and she said to them, "Go and have a good time, but while you are gone I want you to know I am praying for you and will do nothing but pray for you until you get back." ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... The entertainment given by these companies of players (who usually got the patronage and took the title of some lord) was various. They played moralities and interludes, they played formless chronicle history plays like the Troublesome Reign of King John, ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... in that direction than in any other. Fanning speaks of the "great and unnecessary expense" involved in Jones's elaborate alterations, and narrates how, at a later period, when Jones was in command of the Ariel, anchored in the harbor at L'Orient, a magnificent spectacle was given on board for the entertainment of the ladies and gentlemen invited by Jones. A mock fight between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis, in which vast quantities of ammunition were destroyed, took place. The vessel was finely carpeted and decorated, a regal banquet was served, military music played, and in general "neither cash ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... Happiness. Whoever will in the least attend to the thing will see that it is the gaining, not the having, of it, which is the entertainment of the mind." The two statements may however be reconciled. Aristotle may be well understood only to mean, that the pursuit of knowledge will be the pleasanter, the freer it is from the minor hindrances ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... mission; but in the fourth year he assumed the prophetic office, and resolving to impart to his family the light of divine truth, he prepared a banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for the entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. "Friends and kinsmen," said Mahomet to the assembly, "I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you to his service. Who among you will support my ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... This entertainment lasted for two hours, and we returned to the town well pleased with one another. On leaving the bath I gave a Louis to each of the two Bacchantes, and we went away determined to go there no more. It will be understood that after what had happened there ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the works of St. Justin, which will be found in the shelves on the left as you enter his monastery-cell. But not all his requests are for theological works. A true son of the Renaissance, he finds entertainment or instruction in communing with the best of antiquity. When in this mood he asks for his Aristotle bound in sheep's-skin; it will be found in the shelves on the right as you enter the monastery-cell. He would like a Horace and a Virgil—of which there are a great ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... seated immovable before the table charged with plates, cups, jugs, a cold teapot, crumbs, and the general litter of the entertainment ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... DECEIVING YOU," replied Barth, with sharp emphasis. "If you can show her to be blind, you are saved; and Von Stork would petition the empress, in consideration of the shameful imposition practised upon your paternal love, to increase the pension. Well—this evening's entertainment will decide the matter. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... vogue and reverence as men of a notable talent, and very serviceable to their party? so that slander seemeth to have lost its nature, and not to be now an odious sin, but a fashionable humour, a way of pleasing entertainment, a fine knack, or curious feat of policy; so that no man at least taketh himself or others to be accountable for what is said in this way? Is not, in fine, the case become such, that whoever hath in him any love of truth, any sense of justice or honesty, any ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... therefore she must bend all her efforts to be agreeable to it! it can reject her at any given moment, so that her court of it must be continual and expansive. No woman will take so much pains, give so much entertainment, be so willing to conciliate, be so lavish in hospitality, be so elastic in willingness, as the woman who adores Society, and knows that any black Saturday it may turn her out with a bundle of rods, and a ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... Mussulman religion on the subject of his conversion; but only for the sake of amusement. The priests of the Koran, who would probably have been delighted to convert us, offered us the most ample concessions. But these conversations were merely started by way of entertainment, and never could have warranted a supposition of their leading to any serious result. If Bonaparte spoke as a Mussulman, it was merely in his character of a military and political chief in a Mussulman country. To do so was essential to his success, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... entertainment"—as the Georgian novelist was pleased to refer to inns and taverns—had in Dickens' day not departed greatly from their original status. Referring solely to those coaching and posting-houses situated at a greater or lesser distance from ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... stores in plenty, which might be useful to General Braddock, recommended the General to conciliate her by inviting her sons to dinner, which he at once did. The General and the gentlemen of his family made much of them, and they returned home delighted with their entertainment; and so pleased was their mother at the civility shown them that she at once penned a billet thanking his Excellency for his politeness, and begging him to fix the time when she might have the honour of receiving ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... which showed we were nearly on the summit of a level and extensive range of hills. We accomplished fourteen miles with much ease, and halted for the evening in a thick stringy bark forest, where there was worse entertainment for both man and horse than we had experienced ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... said I slowly, "comes a vast deal of entertainment for you, and a hole between two ribs for me. I think ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... eyes and sighs hopeless. "How my niece can find entertainment in such——" Here Aunty stops and shrugs her shoulders. "Well," she goes on, "it is ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... half-a-dozen captains, and, to crown all, a city knight and his lady, besides their general acquaintance, unscientific and unprofessional. For a beginning this was very well; and the company departed very hungry, but highly delighted with their evening's entertainment. ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... oval cakes that are quite acceptable, compared with the wafer-like sheets of the past several days, and five boiled eggs. The people providing these will not accept any direct payment, no doubt thinking my having provided them with the only real entertainment most of them ever saw, a fair equivalent for their breakfast; but it seems too much like robbing paupers to accept anything from these people without returning something, so I give money to the children. These villagers seem utterly destitute of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... it is bound to prevail also where our backward people come into contact with white villages and communities. The cock fights and other demoralizing amusements of Spanish-speaking peoples and the dances of the Indians must be superseded by entertainment that ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... wife was now anxious to furnish the necessary garments. The young girls were rejoiced to aid in the good work, and soon all fingers were busy, and needles were in swift operation; while the boys took turns in the entertainment of the sewers, by alternately reading aloud from a pleasant book. Tom Green was an excellent reader; his agreeable tones of voice made it a pleasure to listen to him, and his clear articulation and varied expression added greatly to the interest of the narrative. Why is it that this ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... as if he had conuersed a long time in their company. Hereupon the earle sent a knight, the bishop a clearke, the Abbot a monke vnto Maniches the Emperour of Constantinople, with the letters and gifts of their King. Who giuing them friendly entertainment, sent them ouer vnto the bishop of Ephesus; and wrote his letters vnto him giuing him charge, that the English Ambassadours might be admitted to see the true, and material habiliments of the seuen Sleepers. And it came ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... for the peace of the same husbands, that he would forbid coquetry, as well as lace, and gold or silver embroidery. I have bought the law on purpose, so that Isabella may read it aloud; and, by and by, when she is at leisure, it shall be our entertainment after supper. (Perceiving Valre). Well, Mr. Sandy-hair, would you like to send again love-letters in boxes of gold? You doubtless thought you had found some young flirt, eager for an intrigue, and melting before pretty speeches. You see how your presents are received! Believe me, you ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere

... large scale and impregnated with Communist doctrine. It goes without saying that Communist doctrine is taught in schools, as Christianity has been taught hitherto, moreover the Communist teachers show bitter hostility to other teachers who do not accept the doctrine. At the children's entertainment alluded to above, the dances and poems performed had nearly all some close relation to Communism, and a teacher addressed the children for something like an hour and a half on the duties of Communists and the ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... France. The capital had been uncommonly brilliant during the winter with banquets and dances, tourneys and masquerades, as if to cast a lurid glare over the unutterable misery of the people and the complete desolation of the country; but this entertainment—given by Montmorency in honour of a fair dame with whom he supposed himself desperately in love, the young bride of a very ancient courtier—surpassed in splendour every festival that had been heard of for years. De Bethune ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... we should meet again!" shouted the soldier to Father De Smet. "And it was certainly thoughtful of you to provide for our entertainment. Comrades, fall to!" ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... entertainment on their first visit as the French could afford; and while it was yet daylight they returned in their ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man amongst the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and Themistocles some years before was deemed ignorant because at an entertainment he declined the lyre when it was offered to him. For this reason musicians flourished in Greece; music was a general study; and whoever was unacquainted with it, was not considered as fully instructed in learning. Geometry was in high esteem with ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... you do not wish to attract attention, it were best so; and I pray you inform Lord Percy of the reason why you declined my entertainment." ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... from far and near to see the show. Its wonders were as fresh to the children as though the entertainment had just left winter ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... to the next meeting of the medical society. His clothes were a trifle shabby, but as the meeting was in the evening, he could go in his evening dress—drop in casually, as it were, from an evening entertainment. That silly bit of pride, however, angered him with himself. He went in his shabby everyday suit. The experience was the most uncomfortable one he had had. The little groups of young doctors did not open ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... discussion, settled down to work, and buried himself in a mass of statistics. I prepared to go to bed, but we had hardly got into the car when there was a tap at the door and a couple of railwaymen came in. They explained that a few hundred yards away along the line a concert and entertainment arranged by the Jaroslavl railwaymen was going on, and that their committee, hearing that Radek was at the station, had sent them to ask him to come over and say a few words to them if he were ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... her sister: "Where are you going, Lina?" "I'll get my sewing and go to the arbor," answered Lina. "Very well," said Mina, "I'll join you there as soon as I'm ready." "And I'll go too," said Godfrey, "for I've got a book I want to finish." "That's right," said Braesig; "it'll be a deuced good entertainment for Lina." Godfrey felt inclined to take the old man to task for using such a word as "deuced," but on second thoughts refrained from doing so, for he knew that it was hopeless to try to bring Braesig round to his opinion, so he followed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... The entertainment commenced at 5 P.M., and lasted till 7. It consisted of a melodrama, full of awful crimes, and the most pathetic sentiment. The audience, chiefly composed of "the people," was, from beginning to end, ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle

... and the queen regent to play; and preference was given to games of chance. The year 1648 was the era of card-playing at court. Cardinal Mazarin played deep and with finesse, and easily drew in the king and queen to countenance this new entertainment, so that every one who had any expectation at court learned to play at cards. Soon after the humour changed, and games of chance came into vogue—to the ruin of many considerable families: this was likewise very destructive to health, for besides the various violent passions it excited, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... on with the entertainment," said Lillian Desmond, as she sat on the arm of Patty's chair, curling wisps of the presidential hair over her fingers. "If Patty had gone away, I should have resigned my part in the show and gone into a convent. Where are you ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells

... he, gravely, to Robin, who had soberly drunk but one cup of ale, "that you would now call a reckoning. 'Tis late, and I fear the cost of this entertainment may be more than my poor purse ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... substitute. During Stella's performance, which followed, the orchestra played jerkily and then stopped, for Yvonne had never yet succeeded in looking on at the child's contortions without a pang of the heart. But the act went smoothly enough, and the entertainment, which lasted nearly an hour, concluded with Cleofonte's exhibition of prowess and the stone-breaking episode of which ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... of the witness-box?" he presently asked, still leaning against the mantel from which he had been watching her impersonally as an intellectual entertainment. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... sort of shy, shrinking goop who might have been expected to shake like an aspen if invited to so much as a social Saturday afternoon at the vicarage. And yet here he was, if one could credit one's senses, about to take part in a fancy-dress ball, a form of entertainment notoriously a testing experience ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... wedding-feast, is scarcely due to the invention of an individual. The shepherd's tricks, by which Jacob colours the sheep as he likes, have quite the flavour of a popular jest. The observance of hospitality or transgressions against it, occupy a prominent place in the Genesis of the Jehovist; Lot's entertainment, and the Sodomites' insulting maltreatment, of the Deity who comes among them in disguise, is an incident that appears in the legends of many races. There is little psychological embellishment, little actual making-up; for the most part we have the product of a countless ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... ate his supper laughing and joking like a boy of nineteen. The table cleared, he ordered a concert for their entertainment. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... all their drilling and parading in the peaceful camp at Hillsborough, the young men had many idle hours, and they devoted these to various forms of amusements. On one occasion, after they had exhausted their ingenuity in search of entertainment, one of them, Lieutenant Buck Ransome, suggested that it might be interesting to get up a ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... fashionable party from twelve to fifteen hundred dollars' worth of champagne is consumed, besides other wines and liquors. Breakfasts are given at a cost of from one to three thousand dollars; suppers at a still higher cost. This represents the expense to the host of the entertainment; but does not cover the cost of the toilettes to be provided for the family, which make up several ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... reading her trial, (if so it may be called,) a repetition of one of the principal charges against the Queen—that of trampling on the national colours at Versailles, during an entertainment given to some newly-arrived troops. Yet I have been assured by two gentlemen, perfectly informed on the subject, and who were totally unacquainted with each other, that this circumstance, which has been so usefully enlarged upon, is false,* and that the whole calumny originated in the jealousy ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... charming picture gallery she would find! All the girls who had occupied the room since Warwick Hall had been a school! Blue eyes and brown, laughing faces and wistful ones, girls in gorgeous full dress, pluming themselves for some evening entertainment, girls in dainty undress and unbound hair, exchanging bed-time confidences as they prepared for the night, ambitious little saints and frivolous little sinners—they were all there, somewhere in the dim background of the mirror, and because of them there was a subtle ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... they had done this, for it was verging on dinner time and they did not want to miss going with Nell Stanley and the Brandons to Parkville for the radio entertainment. Mr. Norwood was at home, and Jessie flew at him a good deal like an ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... gifts of men differ. We see that each, in his own order, may serve and build up the Kingdom of God, but to rank the business of preaching as second to any form of service; to care less for the pulpit than for the class-room, the social, the entertainment, the bazaar, is a fatal mistake. You may make the Church a successful business concern, an interesting and delightful social circle; you may make it a pleasant and intellectual society whither cultured people may resort for new ideas ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... for an entertainment given by the Y.M.C.A. at an aviation barracks in a large camp in France. Mrs. Wilcox addressed five hundred aviators, and these verses were recited with great effect by Mrs. May Randall. After the entertainment there was a rush to obtain autographed ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... the first time, the suffrage women of the District gave free entertainment to delegates to the national convention. Mrs. Ellen Powell Thompson was chairman of the committee and contributed largely to the success of that memorable convention, which ended with the celebration of Miss Susan B. Anthony's eightieth birthday and her ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... Greek legend, king of the fabulous Phaeacians, in the island of Scheria, was the son of Nausithous and grandson of Poseidon. His reception and entertainment of Odysseus, who when cast by a storm on the shore of the island was relieved by the king's daughter, Nausicaa, is described in the Odyssey (vi.-xiii.). The gardens and palace of Alcinous and the wonderful ships of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... entertainment began, and continued for an hour, but the merriment was not as great as had been anticipated. The writer's marvellous wit was lost upon Greifenstein who, in the conscientiousness of his attempt to read well and expressively, confused his own mind to such an extent as to understand very little ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... minutes had elapsed he regarded it as proved that she wouldn't come, and, asking himself what he should do, determined to drive off again and seize her at her comrade's feast. Then he remembered how Nick had mentioned that this entertainment was not to be held at the young actor's lodgings but at some tavern or restaurant the name of which he had not heeded. Suddenly, however, Peter became aware with joy that this name didn't matter, for there was something at the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... caught the contagion, and shaped up and became sober. He got a good suit of clothes somewhere—not new—and appeared quite respectable. He even got something to do, and, in token of what he had been, was put on one of the many committees having a hand in the entertainment arrangements. I never saw a greater change in anyone. It looked as if there was hope for him yet. He stopped me on the street a day or two before the unveiling and told me he had a piece of good ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... gentle refinement existed: this was the love of gardening, both in its smaller compass and it its nobler sense of landscape gardening. 'This place,' Sir Robert, in 1743, wrote to General Churchill, from Houghton, 'affords no news, no subject of entertainment or amusement; for fine men of wit and pleasure about town understand neither the language and taste, nor the pleasure of the inanimate world. My flatterers here are all mutes: the oaks, the beeches, the chestnuts, seem to contend which best shall please the lord of the manor. They cannot deceive; ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... from the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, accompanied by a letter from the chairman of the executive committee organized by the citizens of Washington for the reception and entertainment of the Twenty-sixth Annual Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, which is to be held in Washington during September next. An appeal is made for an appropriation by Congress of $100,000, one-half to be paid out of the District revenues, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... to let Dick go on the dangerous quest without her. She would never dare face her sisters if any mishap came to the lad, and though Vincent put him under the care of an experienced overseer, and ordered the town-house to be opened for his entertainment, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... and is usually regarded as an impossibility for any ordinary housekeeper; and unless one is getting up a supper or other entertainment, it is hardly worth while to undertake it. If the legs and wings are left on, the boning becomes much more difficult. The best plan is to cut off both them and the neck, boiling all with the turkey, and using the meat for ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... relaxation. There had been some gambling, a few fights and enough liquor to create excitement now and then, but the presence of the mounted police had served to keep things unusually tame compared with events a few hundred miles farther north, in the Dawson country. The entertainment proposed by Sandy McTrigger and Jan Harker met with excited favor. The news spread for twenty miles about Red Gold City and there had never been greater excitement in the town than on the afternoon ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... trip but it would be the same old story. I hate to kick you when you're down, but I will say this, your wife doesn't look like one mourning without hope when you're away, and with this Northrup chap on the spot, needing entertainment while he works his game, I'm thinking you better stay right where you are! You can, maybe, untie the knot, old chap. Give her and this Northrup all the chance they want, and if you leave 'em alone, I guess the Forest will smoke ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... Paris is no doubt very fine, although it has been of late unprecedentedly hot; and a French workman, or labourer, enjoys, out of doors—from morning till night those meals, which, with us, are usually partaken of within. The public places of entertainment are pretty sure to receive a prodigious proportion of the population of Paris every evening. A mechanic, or artisan, will devote two thirds of his daily gains to the participation of this pleasure. His dinner will consist of the most meagre fare—at the lowest possible price—provided, in the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... a delightful form of entertainment, for the average child loves to hear stories told. It also establishes a very pleasant personal relation between the children who hear the story and the person who tells it. Herein lies a danger for the library of which we take too little account. Because she can by her stories so delightfully ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... railway "king," who has just made an immense fortune from railway stocks, and is now desirous to get into society. These things are managed in a curious way here. A NOUVEAU RICHE gets several ladies of fashion to patronize their entertainment and invite all the guests. Our invitation was from Lady Parke, who wrote me two notes about it, saying that she would be happy to meet me at Mrs. Hudson's splendid mansion, where would be the best music ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... stopping to think whether she had a right to do so. He looked up, surprised at the invitation, but thankfully accepted it, and Nelly brought two chairs into the hall for him and the little girl. Then, as the only entertainment she was able to supply, she filled two glasses with the coldest water she could find, and shyly ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... with a sort of effortless dignity wholly in keeping with the vigour of her words. He obeyed her literally. There was nothing else for him to do. His slight effort to join her in the cab she firmly repulsed, holding out her hand and speaking a few cheerful words of thanks for her evening's entertainment. And when the cab rolled away Brooks felt ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... two armies?" To this Manlius made answer, "They will come in due time; aye, one that is mightier than they, even Jupiter, will come also: Jupiter, who is witness to the treaties which ye have broken. If at the Lake Regillus we fought with you till ye were weary, so here also we will give you such entertainment as ye shall little like." Then said Metius, "Art thou willing, then, in the meanwhile, while the day on which ye will make so mighty a stir is yet coming, to fight here with me, that from the issue of our meeting all men may know by how much a Latin horseman ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... husband has got, and remember, the next time he deserves it you'll pardon him for our sakes, and it will save you the trouble of giving it to him. It's not to Limerick we're going, but only to Castle Blatherbrook, where we're to play for the entertainment of the wedding guests, for it's Mr Maurice O'Finnahan is to marry Miss Kathleen O'Brien; and Mr O'Brien, the lady's father, will be after paying us well, for he's as rich as Croesus, and we'll bring away a bottle or two of the cratur to comfort ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... church there are pillars of gold and silver, and lamps of silver and gold more than a man can count. Close to the walls of the palace is also a place of amusement belonging to the king, which is called the Hippodrome, and every year on the anniversary of the birth of Jesus the king gives a great entertainment there. And in that place men from all the races of the world come before the king and queen with jugglery and without jugglery, and they introduce lions, leopards, bears, and wild asses, and they engage them in combat with one another; and the same thing is done with birds. No ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... so?—you, who cry out against suicides, as impious and contrary to Christian law? What use is there in killing him? You deter no one else from committing the crime by so doing: you give us, to be sure, half an hour's pleasant entertainment; but it is a great question whether we derive much moral profit from the sight. If you want to keep a murderer from farther inroads upon society, are there not plenty of hulks and prisons, God wot; treadmills, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... people, and often old ones also, first arrive at a party, they are apt to feel a little stiff and awkward, and to stand about in corners, as if oppressed with the responsibility of their best gloves and clothes, and the giver of the entertainment seeks in vain to enliven and stir them up. For her aid we propose to give a few simple recipes which will answer the purpose, and give them a good laugh, after which they will be ready for the harder games which will follow. First she may ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... or woman or child. In this ancient market for the sale of discarded things, a lonely person could pass away the dull hours very agreeably. The auctioneers, wheedling and joking and bullying, could be trusted to amuse any reasonable man for a while, and when their entertainment was exhausted there were the stalls to visit and explore. He stood to listen to a loud-voiced man who was selling secondhand clothes, and then, turning away, found himself standing before a bookstall. Piles of books, of all sizes and shapes and ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... to the girl, and here she was, as crude as life and as intemperate, accusing him of indifference and falsehood. And after all, what had they done to her? No one had been openly rude. Nothing had been said, he was sure, absolutely nothing. It had been a "charity entertainment," and the young people of his set had merely left her alone, that was all. The affair had been far from exclusive—for the enterprising ladies of the Beech Tree Day Nursery had prudently preferred ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... I would rather not mention the exact date. I was fourteen at the time. It was during the Christmas holidays, and my aunt had given me five shillings to go and see Phelps—I think it was Phelps—in Coriolanus—I think it was Coriolanus. Anyhow, it was to see a high-class and improving entertainment, ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... entertainment was always a huge success. The newcomers squatted around the two chairs, ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... will not attack a human being." Kendric sought to speak as though merely contemptuous of Zoraida's entertainment. ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... time one of the matrons left the table and descended to the kitchen, when a finishing stroke was needed for roast pullet or stewed veal. The excuses they made their host for supposed failure in the dishes, lent a certain grace and comic charm to the commonplace of festivity. The entertainment was theirs as much as mine; and they all seemed to enjoy what took the form by degrees of curiously complicated hospitality. I do not think a well-ordered supper at any trattoria, such as at first suggested itself to my imagination, would have given ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... a few cents a year. The whole support of the League devolved upon a dozen men, all of them rich and all of them Puritans of purest ray serene. These men supported a costly organization for their private entertainment and stimulation. It was their means of recreation, their sporting club. They were willing to spend a lot of money to procure good sport for themselves—i.e., to procure the best crusading talent available—and they were so successful in ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... dress, but when Betty ventured to admire it she was informed that it was "A rag, my dear—a prehistoric rag!" and warned that at any moment the worn-out fabric might be expected to fly asunder, when "As you love me, fling yourself upon me, and hurl me from the room! My entertainment comes on last of all. I arranged it so for a special reason," Christabel explained, with the grande dame air which was one of her chief characteristics. "We are to draw lots for the rest, so that ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... and again of Cervantes, not verbal pleasantry, not the felicities of Lamb, but the humor of character in action, of situations elaborated with great freedom, and with what may be called a hilarious conception. This quality is never wanting in the book, either for the reader's entertainment by the way, or to heighten the pathos of the narrative by contrast. The introduction of Topsy into the New Orleans household saves us in the dangerous approach to melodrama in the religious passages between ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... passengers, a superfluity of provision. It was his fixed theory that to feed an Indian was better than to fight one. He showed his passengers the need of surplus foods, if he had an idea he would be visited by his Red Friends, who may have been his foes, but for his cunning in devising entertainment and hospitality for them. The menus of these luncheons consisted chiefly of buffalo sausage, bacon, venison, coffee and canned fruits. He carried the sausage in ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... mentioned the concerto to him, snatching an opportunity when they chanced to find themselves alone for a few minutes. Some distracted young married woman from the village had called to ask Lady Gertrude's advice as to how she should deal with a husband who seemed to find his chief entertainment in life in beating her with a broomstick and in threatening to "do her in" altogether if the application of the broomstick proved barren of wifely improvement. Accordingly, Lady Gertrude, accompanied by her aide-de-camp, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... literature in his mother-tongue. Books there were, German books, but of a dulness, a distance from the actual interests of the warm, various, coloured life around and within him, to us hardly conceivable. There was more entertainment in the natural train of his own solitary thoughts, humoured and rightly attuned by pleasant visible objects, than in all the books he had hunted through so carefully for that all-searching intellectual light, of which a passing gleam of interest ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... preserved amongst the MSS of the British Museum, furnishes several particulars of her entertainment. On Christmas eve, the great hall of the palace being illuminated with a thousand lamps artificially disposed, the king and queen supped in it; the princess being seated at the same table, next to the cloth of estate. After supper she was ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Mississippi, and down that river to New Orleans. Apple and peach orchards are quite common, and gardens are cultivated and much attention paid to them. Butter and cheese are seen on Cherokee tables. There are many public roads in the nation, and houses of entertainment kept by natives. Numerous and flourishing villages are seen in every section of the country. Cotton and woolen cloths are manufactured; blankets of various dimensions, manufactured by Cherokee hands, are very common. Almost every family in the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... appeared, in the presence of his wise and wary room-mates, cat-birds and thrushes, like a big, clumsy, but affectionate baby. It was solely on his account and principally, I must confess, to try and surprise a wild bird at the above described entertainment so as to determine its character, that I wished to make acquaintance with its free relations, study their ways when at liberty in their own haunts, and have a glimpse if possible of the ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... long while since I've struck an entertainment of any kind, and that yellow-haired mite's dancing is one of the prettiest things ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... of us in the Hall, an inattentive, chattering audience of between twenty and thirty people. The last dance had been stopped at ten minutes to twelve, in order that the local parson and his wife—their name was Sturton—might be out of the house of entertainment before the first stroke of Sunday morning. Every one was wound up to a pitch of satisfied excitement. The Cinderella had been a success. The floor and the music and the supper had been good, Mrs. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... Neither durst I have justified your Lordship in it, if examples of it had not been in the world before you: If XENOPHON had not written a Romance; and a certain Roman, called AUGUSTUS CAESAR, a Tragedy and Epigrams. But their writing was the entertainment of their pleasure; yours is only a diversion of your pain. The Muses have seldom employed your thoughts, but when some violent fit of the gout has snatched you from Affairs of State: and, like the priestess of APOLLO, you never come to deliver ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... company, and in the way of becoming an indispensable guest at every entertainment in the place, when the vessel, on board of which Hartley acted as surgeon's mate, arrived at the same settlement. The latter would not, from his situation, have been entitled to expect much civility and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... society last year. My engagements were such to-day that I could not get here earlier; and just as I was coming in Governor Beaver was making his excuses because, as he said, he had to go to pick up a visitor whom he was to escort to the entertainment to be given this evening at the Academy of Music. I am the visitor whom Governor Beaver is looking for. He could not capture me during the war, but he has captured me now. I am a Virginian and used to ride a pretty fast horse, and he could not ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... then, as there were no inns on the road in those days, or indeed in these, and he had some ten miles more of hilly road before him, he turned down the hill towards Clovelly Court, to obtain, after the hospitable humane fashion of those days, good entertainment for man and horse from Mr. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... and goodly instances and histories and witty anedotes and verses and what not else, for there was none among those with whom he was used to company but enjoyed this on every goodly wise, and in the entertainment he had provided was all whereof each had need. Then he sallied forth and went round about the city, in quest of his friends, so he might assemble them; but found none of them ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... of the King's manner of receiving the advice seemed to tranquillise those who had before been dissatisfied with the resolution which had been come to. We then went to the Home Office, where we found Alderman Thompson, Mr. Oldham (the Chairman of the Entertainment Committee), Lord Hill, Lord F. Somerset, Sir W. Gordon, General Macdonald, and Mr. Phillips. There were two City men I did ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... former customer, uplifted and unsettled by the entertainment, returned to the dosshouse, and on the following morning they would again begin treating each other till the Captain's companion would wake up to realize that he had spent all ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... fashionable people, and we can make it fashionable." "If you want to get this print upon the tables of my high connexion, sir," says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, "or if you want to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion, sir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of my high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for I have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion, sir, and I may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my finger"— in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... nature of the ancient comedy for full understanding of this passage from Chrysippus; but since Plutarch assents to the fact, there is reason to believe that this comparison was not a poor one. Plutarch replies in the first place that the world is not like a play to provide entertainment. But that is a poor answer: the comparison lies in this point alone, that one bad part may make the whole better. He replies secondly that this bad passage is only a small part of the comedy, whereas human life swarms with evils. This reply is of no value either: for he ought to have ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... and so did the other people; for it was a boarding-house, and all the people were at home for dinner. They came to the windows, and looked and laughed at dolly's capers, and Poppy was in high feather at the success of her entertainment. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... hard, like the heated mass drawn out of the forge. He cleared the way for Arthur when they came to any stoppage.) Hireerwm and Hiratrwm (the day they went upon a visit three cantref provided for their entertainment, and they feasted until noon and drank until night and they they devoured the heads of vermin as if they had never eaten anything in their lives. When they made a visit they left neither the fat not ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... an hour, and anything more dismal than the result it would be impossible to conceive. A temptation seized me suddenly, and I said: 'Ladies and gentlemen,—I am going to reveal to you a secret. Pray don't let it go any further. This is supposed to be a comic entertainment. I don't expect you to laugh at it in the least; but if, during the next sketch, you would only once oblige me with a society smile, it would give me a great deal of encouragement.' The audience for a moment were dumbfounded. They first began to titter, then to laugh, and actually ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... meantime, while this tragic entertainment had lasted, the crew, entirely absorbed by a question of life and death, had not noticed what was going on outside of the ship. The fog had thickened, the weather had changed, the wind had driven the vessel at will; they were out of their course, in full sight of Jersey and Guernsey, much farther ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... a white biscuit, which we soaked in the wine and eat. And it seemed to us that we were in our own country, and amongst our relations and friends; and we were as much diverted as if a banquet had been given in our honour, so much did we relish our entertainment. We also made a Twelfth-Night king, by means of paper, and our master gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is a country enclosed between two seas, and of the great length of six ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... with it time for fun and entertainment. Tired and leg weary, the cadets stepped on a slidewalk and allowed themselves to be carried to a huge restaurant in the ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... every day more subdued. For I did not calculate the gratification of those banquets by the pleasures of the body so much as by the meetings of friends and conversations. For well did our ancestors style the reclining of friends at an entertainment, because it carried with it a union of life, by the name "convivium" better than the Greeks do, who call this same thing as well by the name of "compotatio" as "concoenatio"; so that what in that kind (of pleasures) is of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... morning on which, throat and mouth parched, head painfully throbbing through the overnight entertainment of Old Tom, Mrs. Major had been driven from Mr. Marrapit's door, this doubly distressed gentlewoman had lived in retirement in a bed-sitting-room in Angel Street. She did not purpose immediately taking another situation. This woman had sipped the delights ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... merely for the sake, apparently, of getting a casual peep at the prisoners as they passed; and with nightfall great fires were lighted in the square, and singing and dancing went on all through the night as a fitting introduction to the entertainment of ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... quite a large number of gentlemen and ladies came over from Weston to attend the entertainment. The Indians returned to their homes ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... in the chair by the table, his supper of black beans, meat, cheese, and tortillas was brought and dispatched without the aid of either knife or fork, and then he turned his attention to our entertainment. ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole

... exact name? for I have lent away the printed pages) that his Philadelphia Magazine with the Lecture* in two pieces was faithfully delivered here, about a fortnight ago; and carefully read, as beseemed, with due entertainment and recognition. A vigorous Mr. Thoreau,—who has formed himself a good deal upon one Emerson, but does not want abundant fire and stamina of his own;—recognizes us, and various other things, in a most admiring great-hearted manner; for which, as for part of the confused voice from the jury ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. It is almost the only one remaining of the old-fashioned Spanish haciendas, where the old administration prevails. The new railway passes it now, and the hospitable owners have been obliged to yield to the public curiosity and provide entertainment for a continual stream of visitors. The place is so perfectly described in "Ramona" that I do not need to draw it over again, and I violate no confidence and only certify to the extraordinary powers of delineation of the novelist, when I say that she only spent a few hours there,—not a quarter ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... so unlike country sheep that every year they give Porthos a shock. He can make a field of country sheep fly by merely announcing his approach, but these town sheep come toward him with no promise of gentle entertainment, and then a light from last year breaks upon Porthos. He cannot with dignity retreat, but he stops and looks about him as if lost in admiration of the scenery, and presently he strolls away with a fine indifference ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... solemnity of the entertainment increases in proportion to the noise made, there is a full orchestra. The choruses bawl, the bamboos deafen one with their loud noise like that of huge wooden bells, the krobs sob desperately at the way they are treated by the plectrum, the ciniloi whistles and laments, ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... conspicuous," and when, "after a final glance at his miniature horologe, he ascended the platform and placed himself at the instrument, he at once commanded attention." Dr. Hedderwick says it was a drawing-room entertainment, more piano than forte, though not without occasional episodes of both strength and grandeur. It was perfectly clear to him that Chopin was marked for an ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... bachelor life, was given to the lecturer on ethics. A great deal of wine had been consumed and the only artist the town boasted, the professor of drawing at the Cathedral School, had depicted in bold outlines the victim's career up to date. It was the great feature of the whole entertainment. Ethics was a subject of teaching and a milch cow, like many others, and need not necessarily influence either the life of the community, or the life of the individual. The lecturer had not been a saint, but had had his adventures like everybody ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... worthies here, not because we had forgotten them,—much less because we think less of them than the others, especially Sydney. But because we bring them in at the end of our small entertainment, as we hand round a liqueur—be it Curacoa, Kimmel, or old Glenlivet—after dinner, and end with the heterogeneous plum-pudding—that most English of realized ideas. Sydney Smith's book is one of rare excellence, and well worthy of the study of men and women, though ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... because he is no longer of the living? Then let all history be rewritten, and let the puling mawkishness which the hypocrites call manly indignation, reject from the page of history the infamy of a Nero, the cruelty of a Tiberius, and the treason of an Arnold. If it be proper for the entertainment or instruction of posterity, that the vices and crimes of the men of history shall be faithfully detailed, why should not the "treason" of General Reed, contemplated or effected, be spread upon his country's annals? Above all, when he and his descendants have adroitly ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... Dunshaughlin was rummaging in her young lady's work-basket for some riband, "which she knew she might take," to dress a cap that was to be hung upon a pole as a prize, to be danced for at the pattern, [Footnote: Patron, probably—an entertainment held in honour of the patron saint. A festive meeting, similar to a wake in England.] to be given next Monday at Ormond Vale, by Prince Harry. Prince Harry was now standing by, giving some instructions about the ordering of the entertainment; Betty, in the mean time, pursued ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... keeps himself out of the picture and eschews ideas most successfully attract us as coming from the hand of a skilful writer. His studies of Clarendon, Metternich, Napoleon and Melbourne are all of them good entertainment. If I comment on the Shakespeare essay rather than on these, it is because here more than anywhere else in the book the author's skill as a portrait-painter is put to the test. Here he has to depend almost exclusively ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... Captain Fatchett, an old friend of mine, came into the quarters, and Brown turned me over to him for entertainment until I should formulate my plans for my visit to Sitting Bull. I had never served with the Eighth Cavalry to which the companies at the Post belonged, but I had many friends among the officers, and spent a very pleasant afternoon and evening talking ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... are rarely seen in New Zealand, but less evident manifestations of faulty diet and regime are frequent. It is fortunate that in this country we cannot altogether escape, however we seek our pleasures in stuffy rooms or dark, ill-ventilated places of entertainment, those powerful and beneficial agents for promoting healthy growth—sunlight and fresh air. For the prevention of defect it is essential that the classroom should offer hygienic conditions—e.g., good lighting ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews



Words linked to "Entertainment" :   nightlife, beguilement, show, recreation, edutainment, entertain, night life, militainment, distraction, extravaganza, diversion



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