| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| enterprise |
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| SYLLABICATION: | en·ter·prise |
| PRONUNCIATION: |   n t r-pr z |
| NOUN: | 1. An undertaking, especially one of some scope, complication, and risk. 2. A business organization. 3. Industrious, systematic activity, especially when directed toward profit: Private enterprise is basic to capitalism. 4. Willingness to undertake new ventures; initiative: “Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs” (Henry David Thoreau). | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old French entreprise, from past participle of entreprendre, to undertake : entre-, between (from Latin inter-; see inter–) + prendre, to take (from Latin prehendere, pr ndere; see ghend- in Appendix I). | | OTHER FORMS: | enter·priser —NOUN
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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