the.com/entertainer
a professional liar paid to make truth feel like an accident you were lucky to witness.
means A person who performs to amuse, delight, or hold the attention of an audience — singer, comic, juggler, or anyone who makes a living being watched.
from From 'entertain,' which came into English in the 1400s from the French 'entretenir' — literally 'to hold together,' from Latin 'inter' (among, between) and 'tenere' (to hold). The earliest sense was to keep something going or to maintain — you 'entertained' a household, a hope, a guest. Only later did the holding shift from keeping people housed to keeping them amused; the '-er' performer who does this for a living is a much more recent layer on a very old word about simply keeping hold.
- Latin root
- From tenere, to hold — literally holding you between
- Stage fright
- Most pros never lose it, just outrun it
- Vegas economics
- A single residency can outearn entire movie franchises
- Dark math
- The funniest people score highest on depression scales
- Oldest job
- Cave paintings suggest performers predate written language
david copperfield — magician who made the statue of liberty disappear in 1983
cirque du soleil — canadian circus company performing in 25+ cities worldwide since 1984