Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To come or go into.
  • intransitive verb To penetrate; pierce.
  • intransitive verb To introduce; insert.
  • intransitive verb To become a participant, member, or part of; join.
  • intransitive verb To gain admission to (a school, for example).
  • intransitive verb To cause to become a participant, member, or part of; enroll.
  • intransitive verb To embark on; begin.
  • intransitive verb To make a beginning in; take up.
  • intransitive verb To write or put in.
  • intransitive verb To place formally on record; submit.
  • intransitive verb To go to or occupy in order to claim possession of (land).
  • intransitive verb To report (a ship or cargo) to customs.
  • intransitive verb To come or go in; make an entry.
  • intransitive verb To effect penetration.
  • intransitive verb To become a member or participant.
  • noun A key on a keyboard or keypad used to enter or confirm a command or other textual input.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A prefix immediately of French origin, but ultimately of Latin origin, signifying ‘between’: same as inter-.
  • To come or go into; pass into the inside or interior of; get into, or come within, in any manner: as, to enter a house, a harbor, or a country; a sudden thought entered his mind.
  • To penetrate into; pass through the outer portion or surface of; pierce: as, the post entered the soil to the depth of a foot.
  • To go inside of; pass through or beyond: as, I forbid you to enter my doors.
  • To begin upon; make a beginning of; take the first step in; initiate: as, the youth has entered his tenth year; to enter a new stage in a journey.
  • To engage or become involved in; enlist in; join; become a member of: as, to enter the legal profession, the military service or army, an association or society, a university, or a college.
  • To initiate into a business, service, society, or method; introduce.
  • To insert; put or set in: as, to enter a wedge; to enter a tenon in a mortise; to enter a fabric to be dyed into the dye-bath.
  • To set down in writing; make a record of; enroll; inscribe: as, the clerk entered the account or charge in the journal.
  • To cause to be inscribed or enrolled; offer for admission, reception, or competition: as, to enter one's son or one's self at college; to enter a friend's name at a club; to enter a horse for a race.
  • To report at the custom-house, as a vessel on arrival in port, by delivering a manifest: as, to enter a ship or her cargo.
  • In law: To go in or upon and take possession of, as lands. See entry.
  • To place in regular form before a court; place upon the records of a court: as, to enter a writ, an order, or an appearance.
  • To set on game; specifically, of young dogs, to set on game for the first time.
  • To make an entrance, entry, or ingress; pass to the interior; go or come from without inward: used absolutely or with in, into, on, or upon. See phrases below.
  • Specifically To appear upon the stage; come into view: said of personages in a drama, or of actors: as, enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.
  • To begin; make beginning.
  • To engage in: as, to enter into business.
  • To be or become initiated in; comprehend.
  • To deal with or treat fully of, as a subject, by way of discussion, argument, and the like; make inquiry or scrutiny into; examine.
  • To be an ingredient in; form a constituent part in: as, lead enters into the composition of pewter.
  • To begin to treat or deal with, as a subject, by way of discussion, argument, and the like.
  • See inter.
  • An obsolete form of entire.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To go or come in; -- often with in used pleonastically; also, to begin; to take the first steps.
  • intransitive verb To get admission; to introduce one's self; to penetrate; to form or constitute a part; to become a partaker or participant; to share; to engage; -- usually with into; sometimes with on or upon

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English entren, from Old French entrer, from Latin intrāre, from intrā, inside; see en in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English entren, from Old French entrer, from Latin intrō, from intrā ("inside"). Has been spelled as "enter" for several centuries even in the United Kingdom, although British English retains the "re" ending for many words such as centre, fibre, spectre, theatre, calibre, sombre, lustre, and litre.

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Examples

Comments

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  • I entered my name.

    February 15, 2007

  • we walked in the door.

    February 15, 2007