Amusing

How to spell amusing

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce amusing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does amusing mean?

1. adjectiveCausing light enjoyment or laughter; entertaining in a pleasant way.

Amusing in a sentence

• The comedian told an amusing story about his first job.

• She found the typo in the formal report quietly amusing.

Where does amusing come from?

Language of origin: French

This word descends from the Old French verb amuser, formed from the prefix a-, meaning 'to', and the verb muser, which literally meant 'to stare, gaze, or ponder idly'. When English borrowed amuse in the late 1400s, its earliest sense was actually 'to deceive or distract someone's attention', much like keeping a person idly gazing so they do not notice something else. Over the 1600s the meaning softened from 'to divert by deception' toward the friendlier modern idea of 'to entertain or please', and the present participle amusing came to describe anything that produces that light, agreeable pleasure. The same muser root lies behind 'muse' in the sense of musing or pondering, which is a useful memory hook: there is just one s in the middle, pronounced like a z, and no doubled m. English writers often want to double that m by mistake, but the spelling keeps the single consonants of its French parent.

How the word is built

• a- (to, from Old French a-)
• muse (from muser: to ponder, gaze)
• -ing (adjective/participle suffix)