Entities
An entity is most basically a "thing." An entity can be material or immaterial, inanimate or animate, simple or complex, concrete or abstract. Mostly anything one could think of or describe would be an entity of one sort or another.
In English, one usually distinguishes between things and persons. While an individual human being or person is an entity in many senses, these senses usually involve a particular human being when considered from the standpoint of law or what might be called "a person in a jural sense." The more a person is considered to be a cause for or of some happening or human behavior, the more he/she/it is likely to be considered an entity.
While a group of persons is also an entity in many senses, these senses usually involve a particular groups of persons when considered from the standpoint of law or what might be called "a group in a jural sense." The more a group of persons is considered to be a cause for or of some happening or human behavior, the more it is likely to considered an entity.
While an occasion is also an entity, this is complicated by the fact that it is a more or less sacred cause for or of some happening or human behavior. The more of a sacred cause the occasion is, the more of an entity it is. When one understands a particular occasion, and the role of a person of groups of persons in relation to it, one becomes able to offer cultural explanations of behavior.
In the photos above, a bowler hat is clearly a thing that is an entity, but it can also play the role of a costume of sorts, making a person wearing it more of an entity. Likewise, as in the next photo, a set of relations or a network is also an entity. The animal called the Pangolin is an entity by virtue of being an animal, and also an entity as a sacred animal or object amongst the Lele people of the Congo. A place can be an entity, including an entity to be bought and sold as real estate or otherwise. The Aurora Borealis is an entity, as are an HIV virus and a Cichlid fish. While we tend to describe such entities as being non-individual, they are in fact individual as well. Each instance of an entity is a manifestation of its greater nature or collective identity (ee Kwowth?). The masked man is also more of an entity than a person, his mask making him more of an entity than seeing him without it.
It is for these and similar reasons, each related to different occasions, that the term "entity" is commonly used to describe a thing that is familiar and natural, but also as somehow strange and supernatural.