Entertaiment is an activity that has become strongly associated with amusement, although it can have a serious purpose (such as in ceremonies, religious festivals, or satire). The word entertainment is sometimes used as a synonym for edification, or for an experience that stimulates the brain to release seratonin and other feel-good chemicals.

Oliver and Barstsch (2010) define entertainment as an objectively defined activity that involves communication between text and audience from external stimulus, offers pleasure, requires an audience to exist, and occurs in a passive form. The etymology of entertainment is derived from Middle English entretenement, which itself is an abbreviation of the Latin inter-tenere (“to hold within”). This means that entertainment is anything that can be consumed or experienced.