AMUSING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Amusing

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/əmjˈuzɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Amuse v. t. (past & past part. amused; pres. part. amusing)

To occupy or engage the attention of; to lose in deep thought; to absorb; also, to distract; to bewilder. (Obs.) "Camillus set upon the Gauls when they were amused in receiving their gold." "Being amused with grief, fear, and fright, he could not find the house."

To entertain or occupy in a pleasant manner; to stir with pleasing or mirthful emotions; to divert. "A group of children amusing themselves with pushing stones from the top (of the cliff), and watching as they plunged into the lake."

To keep in expectation; to beguile; to delude. "He amused his followers with idle promises."

Synonyms: To entertain; gratify; please; divert; beguile; deceive; occupy. To Amuse, Divert, Entertain. We are amused by that which occupies us lightly and pleasantly. We are entertained by that which brings our minds into agreeable contact with others, as conversation, or a book. We are diverted by that which turns off our thoughts to something of livelier interest, especially of a sportive nature, as a humorous story, or a laughable incident. "Whatever amuses serves to kill time, to lull the faculties, and to banish reflection. Whatever entertains usually awakens the understanding or gratifies the fancy. Whatever diverts is lively in its nature, and sometimes tumultuous in its effects."

Amuse v. i. To muse; to mediate. (Obs.)

adjective

Amusing adj. Giving amusement; diverting; as, an amusing story.

See images of 'Amusing'

Etymology of 'Amusing'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books

... It was highly amusing to observe the peculiarity which the consciousness of superior knowledge impressed upon the conversation and personal appearance of this decaying race. Whatever might have been the original conformation of their physical structure, it was sure, by the force of acquired ...

— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... wife, whose companionship, and needs, and admiration for himself filled up all the vacant spaces in his life. He would, however, have been genuinely surprised if he had realised that it was by a constant, deliberate intention that she succeeded in entertaining him, in amusing him, as much as she did her friends and acquaintances; if he had thought that she had made up her mind that never, while she had power to prevent it, should he come into his own house and find it dull. And he ...

— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... its rocky throne, high above the river bed, and its background of glistening white mountains. The huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its hundreds of window-eyes close-lidded, and I could not imagine it an amusing place for a house party. I was glad that the Boy was not animated with that wild mania for squeezing the last drop from the orange of sightseeing which makes some travelling companions so depressing. The castle was closed to visitors, yet many people would have ...

— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... as she served her friends with her own hands they both abandoned themselves to the pleasure of the moment and talked of cheerful and amusing things. ...

— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... pig-feeding, sheep-feeding, and cow-feeding, poultry-feeding, and horse-feeding, he gives an account of his own experiments and observations. Of the thriving condition of the American horses Cobbett gives an example in his amusing vein, and by a trial made at his own farm in Long Island, he proved that neither their strength nor speed ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

More quotes...