- To occupy in an agreeable, pleasing, or entertaining fashion.
- To cause to laugh or smile by giving pleasure: I was not amused by his jokes.
- Archaic. To delude or deceive.
[Middle English, from Old French amuser, to stupefy : a-, to (from Latin ad-; see ad–) + muser, to stare stupidly; see muse.]
amusable a·mus'a·ble adj.amuser a·mus'er n.
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).
