In French, the name of any dish prepared for the table is mets; the fish of the first course, the entree of the second, and the roast of the third are all mets. Between these courses—and the French word for between is entre—are served the entremets, or what in English are more commonly called side dishes. The word entre, incidentally, has nothing to do with the word entree, meaning main dish: entre and entree both derive from Latin sources, and there may be some ancient connection between them, but that distant link was not on the minds of those who gave the entremets their name. The word entremets is actually more closely related to the English word mess, as in mess hall, the place where military personnel eat: both the mets of entremets and the mess of mess hall derive from the Latin word mittere, which strictly means to send but which also came to mean to put, especially with the sense of putting food on a table. In fact, when the word entremets was first taken into English in the early fourteenth century, it was spelt entremess; the current spelling, entremets, did not take hold until the late fifteenth century. In France, entremets could also mean a spectacular entertainment involving dwarves, elephants, and papier mache dragons that was performed between the courses of a meal; the word was never used with this sense by the English, who called the same kind of entertaining spectacles subtleties.
The term “sweet course” generally refers to a delectable dessert served at the conclusion of a meal.
In the past, a small and light dish served between the main course and dessert was referred to as a “remove”. Nowadays, the term is no longer used in this context. Instead, the word “dessert” typically refers to a sweet dish that is served at the end of a meal, which can be either hot or cold.