Search the Dictionary

One who entertains for another suo Want gives to know the flatterer from the friend. Dryden. A friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Prov. xviii. 24.

The state of being gay; merriment; mirth; acts or entertainments prompted by, or inspiring, merry delight; -- used often in the plural; as, the gayeties of the season.

Music; minstrelsy; entertainment. [Obs.] Chaucer.

A visitor; a person received and entertained in one's house or at one's table; a visitor entertained without pay. To cheer his gueste, whom he had stayed that night. Spenser. True friendship's laws are by this rule exprest. Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. Pope.

A station for rest and entertainment; a place of security and comfort; a refuge; a shelter. [A grove] fair harbour that them seems. Spenser. For harbor at a thousand doors they knocked. Dryden.

Shelter; entertainment.[R.] Where can I get me harborage for the night Tennyson.

having become very popular or acclaimed; -- said of entertainment performances; as, a hit record, a hit movie.

year, on which children go about singing, and receive a dole of bread or cakes; also, the entertainment given on that day to a visitor, or the gift given to an applicant. [Scot.]

ed; as, a homely garment; a homely house; homely fare; homely manners. Now Strephon daily entertains His Chloe in the homeliest strains. Pope.

or. -- To do the honors, to bestow honor, as on a guest; to act as host or hostess at an entertainment. "To do the honors and to give the word." Pope. -- To do one honor, to confer distinction upon one. -- To have the honor, to have the privilege or distinction. -- Word of honor, an engagement confirmed by a pledge…

To entertain or indulge hope; to cherish a desire of good, or of something welcome, with expectation of obtaining it or belief that it is obtainable; to expect; -- usually followed by for. "Hope for good success." Jer. Taylor. But I will hope continually. Ps. lxxi. 14.

A convent or monastery which is also a place of refuge or entertainment for travelers on some difficult road or pass, as in the Alps; as, the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard.

Receiving and entertaining strangers or guests with kindness and without reward; kind to strangers and guests; characterized by hospitality. Shak.

A place for shelter or entertainment; an inn. [Obs.] Spenser.

The act or practice of one who is hospitable; reception and entertainment of strangers or guests without reward, or with kind and generous liberality. Given to hospitality. Rom. xii. 13. And little recks to find the way to heaven By doing deeds of hospitality. Shak.

One who receives or entertains another, whether gratuitosly or for compensation; one from whom another receives food, lodging, or entertainment; a landlord. Chaucer. "Fair host and Earl." Tennyson. Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand. Shak.

A female host; a woman who hospitably entertains guests at her house. Shak.

A house for entertaining strangers or travelers; an inn or public house, of the better class.

sculpture carved from a block of ice, often used for decorating restaurants. ice show an entertainment consisting of ice skaters performing figure-skating on a sheet of ice, usually in an arena, often accompanied by music. -- Ice sludge, bay ice broken small by the wind or waves; sludge. -- Ice spar (Min.), a variet…

th i' the other, And I will look on both indifferently. Shak. I hope it may indifferently entertain your lordship at an unbending hour. Rowe.