AMUSE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Amuse

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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.)

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Etymology of 'Amuse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Amuse" Quotes from Famous Books

... pages—to fish for bass at Dillon's Falls in Ohio. Alas for Bill Dilg and Bob Davis, who never saw this blue-blooded home of bronze-back black-bass! In the heat of the day my brother and I jabbed our poles into the bank, and set off to amuse ourselves some other way for a while. When we returned my pole was pulled down and wabbling so as to make a commotion in the water. Quickly I grasped it and pulled, while Reddy stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed. ...

— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... one. After Ma Manatee had gone, Baby and I had a quiet hour or so and I was getting pretty tired and beginning to worry a lot about you, when something happened to set me to worrying about myself. This is a big, deep river, and there was enough going on to amuse me, dolphins, turtles and tarpon coming up to blow as they passed and small fish jumping out of the water most of ...

— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... making us both willing and obedient to the instruction of his word. As the knowledge and practice of this are the principal means of salvation, I cannot see what it avails any christian church, or man in the world, to amuse himself with speculations and opinions, except it be to display their particular vanity ...

— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... of Bacon's own endeavors to improve the details of physical science, which was next to nothing, and of his method as a whole, which has never been practised, we might say much of the good influence of his writings. Sound wisdom, set in sparkling wit, must instruct and amuse to the end of time: and, as against error, we repeat that Bacon is soundly wise, so far as he goes. There is hardly a form of human error within his scope which he did not detect, expose, and attach to a satirical metaphor which never ...

— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... spent quietly, and every evening, after our coffee (served in the living-room in winter, and in the garden in summer), Frau Generalin would amuse me with descriptions of life in her old home, and of how girls were brought up in her day; how industry was esteemed by her mother the greatest virtue, and idleness was punished as the most beguiling sin. She ...

— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

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