| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| amuse |
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| SYLLABICATION: | a·muse |
| PRONUNCIATION: |   -my z |
| TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: a·mused, a·mus·ing, a·mus·es
1. To occupy in an agreeable, pleasing, or entertaining fashion. 2. To cause to laugh or smile by giving pleasure: I was not amused by his jokes. 3. Archaic To delude or deceive. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old French amuser, to stupefy : a-, to (from Latin ad-; see ad–) + muser, to stare stupidly; see muse. | | OTHER FORMS: | a·musa·ble —ADJECTIVE
a·muser —NOUN
| | SYNONYMS: | amuse, entertain, divert, regale These verbs refer to actions that provide pleasure, especially as a means of passing time. Amuse, the least specific, implies directing attention away from serious matters: I amused myself with a game of solitaire. Entertain suggests acts undertaken to furnish amusement: “They [timetables and catalogs] are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written” (W. Somerset Maugham). Divert implies distraction from worrisome thought or care: “I had neither Friends or Books to divert me” (Richard Steele). To regale is to entertain with something enormously enjoyable: “He loved to regale his friends with tales about the many memorable characters he had known as a newspaperman” (David Rosenzweig).
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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