enter

• entre (archaic, before circa 1700)

From Middle English entren, from Old French entrer, from Latin intrō (“enter”, verb), from intrā (“inside”). Has been spelled as "enter" for several centuries even in the United Kingdom, although British English and the English of many Commonwealth Countries (e.g. Australia, Canada) retain the "re" ending for many words such as centre, fibre, spectre, theatre, calibre, sombre, lustre, and litre.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɛntə(ɹ)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɛntɚ/, [ˈɛɾ̃ɚ]
  • (pin–pen merger, nt-flapping) IPA^(key): [ˈɪɾ̃ɚ]

• Audio (UK); “to enter”:

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛntə(ɹ)
• Homophone: inner (pin–pen merger, nt-flapping)
• Hyphenation: en‧ter

enter (third-person singular simple present enters, present participle entering, simple past and past participle entered)

1. (intransitive) To go or come into an enclosed or partially enclosed space.

   You should knock before you enter, unless you want to see me naked.

   • 1555, John Proctor, The historie of Wyates rebellion, with the order and maner of resisting the same, …, page 86:

     […] you can fynde in youre heartes to assaulte her with rebellion, or in any wise [ways] suffer any one eyvil motion to enter into your thoughtes against her?

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 3:5:

     Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

     In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. […] Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.

   • 2024, NTSB, Intersection Crash Between Passenger Car and Combination Vehicle, Tishomingo, Oklahoma, March 22, 2022:

     We determined that the car driver’s transportation of multiple teen passengers, limited driving experience, and likely impairment from effects of cannabis at the time of the crash adversely affected her judgment of the danger of entering the intersection in front of the approaching combination vehicle.

2. (transitive) To cause to go (into), or to be received (into); to put in; to insert; to cause to be admitted.

   to enter a knife into a piece of wood

   to enter a boy at college, a horse for a race, etc.

3. (figuratively) To go or come into (a state or profession).

   My twelve-year-old son will be entering his teens next year.

   She had planned to enter the legal profession.

   • 2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:

     Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. …  But the scandals kept coming, and so we entered stage three – what therapists call "bargaining".

5. (transitive) To type (something) into a computer; to input.

   Enter your user name and password.

6. (transitive) To record (something) in an account, ledger, etc.
   • 2003, A. Mukherjee, M. Hanif, Financial Accounting, →ISBN, page 27:

     Each amount entered in the debit column of the journal is posted by entering it on the credit side/column of an account in the ledger.

7. (intransitive, law) To become a party to an agreement, treaty, etc.
   • 2003 February 4, The President of the United States, “NOTIFICATION TO ENTER INTO A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF SINGAPORE”, in U.S. Government Printing Office, retrieved 2013-9-9:

     I am pleased to notify the Congress of my intent to enter into a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Government of Singapore.

8. (law, intransitive) To become effective; to come into effect.
   • 2005, United Nations, Dispositions Législatives Et Réglementaires Nationales Relatives À la Prévention Et À L'élimination Du Terrorisme International, →ISBN, page 215:

     This Act shall enter into force on 01 March 1998.

9. (law) To go into or upon, as lands, and take actual possession of them.
10. (transitive, law) To place in regular form before the court, usually in writing; to put upon record in proper from and order^[1]

    to enter a writ, appearance, rule, or judgment

11. To make report of (a vessel or its cargo) at the custom house; to submit a statement of (imported goods), with the original invoices, to the proper customs officer for estimating the duties. See entry.
12. (transitive, US, dated, historical) To file, or register with the land office, the required particulars concerning (a quantity of public land) in order to entitle a person to a right of preemption.
    • 1887, United States General Land Office, Annual Report of the Commissioner of General Land Office, US Government Printing Office, page 82:

      Under existing laws governing the qualifications of an alien to enter 160 acres or more of the public domain he is only required to file his declaration of intent to become a citizen.

13. To deposit for copyright the title or description of (a book, picture, map, etc.).

    entered according to act of Congress

14. (transitive, obsolete) To initiate; to introduce favourably.
    • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

      This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings, / Shall enter me with him.

• go in, ingo
• come in

• (intransitive) exit

 

enter (plural enters)

1. (computing) Alternative spelling of Enter (“the computer key”)
2. (computing) Alternative spelling of Enter (“a stroke of the computer key”)

• “enter”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• entre, rente, terne, treen

Borrowed from Spanish entero (displacing older Catalan forms such as entegre), from Latin integrum. Compare Occitan entièr, French entier, Spanish entero. Doublet of íntegre, a later borrowing from Latin.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ənˈter]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [enˈter]

enter (feminine entera, masculine plural enters, feminine plural enteres)

1. entire, whole, complete

   Synonym: sencer

• enterament
• nombre enter

enter m (plural enters)

1. whole number, integer

   Synonyms: nombre enter, nombre sencer

2. a complete lottery ticket (made up of ten dècims)

• entregar

• “enter” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “enter” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From English Enter.

• IPA^(key): /ˈent(ː)er/, [ˈe̞n̪t̪(ː)e̞r]
• Rhymes: -enter
• Hyphenation^(key): en‧ter

enter

1. Enter (computer key)

From a Vulgar Latin *imptāre, contraction of *imputāre (“to graft”) (unrelated to Latin imputō (“to reckon, attribute”)), from inpotus (attested in Salic Law), from Ancient Greek ἔμφυτος (émphutos, “planted”). The Greek word may have actually reached Gaul through traders at the Mediterranean coastal colonies before the Roman conquest.

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.te/

• Audio:

  (file)

enter

1. (agriculture) to graft
2. to implant

• “enter”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• entre, entré
• rente, renté
• terne

• entar

From Proto-Celtic *enter (“between”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁enter (“between”). Cognates include Celtiberian entara (“between”), Old Irish eter (“between”) (Irish idir (“between, both”)), Latin inter (“between”), Sanskrit अन्तर् (antár, “between, within, into”), Oscan 𐌀𐌍𐌕𐌄𐌓 (anter, “between”), and Old High German untar (“between”).

enter

1. between, among

• Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, published 2003, →ISBN, page 163.
• Ranko Matasović, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, published 2009, →ISBN, page 117.

• Audio:

  (file)

enter

1. inflection of entern:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. singular imperative

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛn.tɛr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛntɛr
• Syllabification: en‧ter

enter m inan

1. (computing) Enter (key on a computer keyboard)

• enter in Polish dictionaries at PWN