Other forms: entertaining, entertained, entertains
To entertain is to amuse people, or to have guests in your home. Entertain the children, entertain guests, entertain an idea.
The third sense is the interesting one: to entertain an idea is to hold it and consider it without accepting it, which is the same holding that gives the other senses. The French entretenir means to hold among.
1verbentertainTo amuse people.
“The clown entertained the children with magic tricks and balloon animals.”
2verbconsiderTo consider an idea without accepting it.
“The manager wouldn't entertain any suggestion that the plan might fail.”
entertain is an amusing, or a considering.
Old French entretenir means to hold among — entre, among, plus tenir, to hold.
Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Latin
inter
Old French
entretenir
Middle French
entretenir
Middle English
entertenen
English, today
entertain
Built from
From Middle English entertenen, from Middle French entretenir, from Old French entretenir, from entre (“among”) + tenir (“to hold”), from Latin inter + teneō (“hold, keep”). For the noun, compare French entretien. Sense of answering a phone call in Malaysian English is influenced by Malay layan “to serve, to attend to or engage with something”.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA