/əˈmjuːz/
[verb] To make someone laugh or smile, or to keep someone entertained and interested. If something amuses you, it gives you pleasure and makes time pass enjoyably.
Before it meant 'entertain', amuse literally meant to make someone stare blankly like a fool — to daze them into stupidity.
The word 'amuse' entered English in the late 15th century from the Middle French amuser, meaning to cause someone to muse, to stupefy, or to make a person stand still and stare. That French verb was built from the prefix a- (meaning 'at' or 'toward') combined with muser, which meant to stare fixedly, to loiter, or to waste time doing nothing. The original picture was not of laughter or delight, but of a person standing with their mouth open, doing absolutely nothing useful — essentially, a dazed fool.
The deeper root, muser, is thought to come from the Old French muse, meaning 'snout' or 'muzzle', possibly related to the image of an animal lifting its nose into the air and sniffing around, confused and distracted. From Middle French amuser, the word passed into English, carrying this older sense of idle distraction rather than fun. In its earliest English uses, to amuse someone meant to deceive them, to trick them into a daze, or simply to keep them occupied so that they did not notice what was really happening — a kind of deliberate distraction.
This deceptive edge was sharp and important in early usage. Military writers of the 16th and 17th centuries used 'amuse' to mean a tactical diversion — to amuse the enemy was to distract them with a feint while the real attack came from another direction. A general might 'amuse' opposing forces at one end of a battlefield to draw their attention away from the critical movement elsewhere. This was closer in spirit to 'mislead' than to 'entertain'.
Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the word gradually softened. The idea of tricking someone into idle distraction slowly became the gentler idea of keeping someone pleasantly occupied. By the time of the great English diarists and letter-writers of the 18th century, 'amuse' was already slipping toward its modern meaning — something that causes pleasure, laughter, or cheerful entertainment. The sharp teeth of the word were quietly filed down.
By the 19th century, the transformation was complete. 'Amuse' now meant simply to entertain or delight, and the noun 'amusement' described a source of pleasure or fun — from amusement parks to private laughter. The related word 'muse', meaning to think deeply and quietly, survived separately in English from Old French muser → Middle French muser → English muse, keeping the older sense of idle, distracted thought. What is remarkable is that both words — one meaning thoughtful contemplation, the other meaning laughter and fun — grew from the same ancient image of a creature frozen still, nose in the air, staring at nothing at all.