entrée

French entrée — literally 'entry' or 'entrance' — came from entrer (to enter), from Latin intrare. In French cuisine of the 17th and 18th centuries, the entrée was the dish that entered the table after the soup and before the rôt (roast). It was a transitional course: something substantial enough to bridge the liquid opening and the meat centerpiece. The word named a position in a sequence, not a type of food.

Louis XIV's court at Versailles codified the entrée system into elaborate ritual. The king's meals had multiple entrées, each carried in by servants in a specific order, each arriving with ceremonial announcement. The entrée was theatrical: it entered, and its entry was an event. Court dining had elaborate staging that turned eating into performance.

When French cuisine crossed to England and then to America in the 19th century, the French course sequence did not fully translate. The American restaurant meal was simpler — soup, then a main dish, then dessert. Entrée, the entering dish, became attached to the main dish in American usage, apparently because it 'entered' the American simplified sequence as the centerpiece. By the early 20th century, American menus used entrée for the main course while French menus still meant an intermediate one.

The divergence now fully codified: an American entrée is the main dish; a French entrée is a starter. Same word, different positions in different dining sequences. The French still use the word correctly if you accept that the original meaning was relative, not absolute. The entrée enters. Where you place the entrance determines what it enters before.