Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Sport?

\Sport\ (sp[=o]rt), n. [Abbreviated frm disport.] 1. That which diverts, and makes mirth; pastime; amusement. It is as sport a fool do mischief. --prov. x. 23. Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight. --Sir P. Sidney. Think it but a minute spent in sport. --Shak. 2. Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth; derision. Then make sport at me; then let me be your jest.Shak. 3. That with which one plays, or which is driven about in play; a toy; a plaything; an object of mockery. Flitting leaves, the sport of every wind. --Dryden. Never does man appear to greater disadvantage than when he is the sport of his own ungoverned pasions. --John Clarke. 4. Play; idle jingle. An author who should introduce such a sport of words upon our stage would meet with small applause. --Broome. 5. Diversion of the field, as fowling, hunting, fishing, racing, games, and the like, esp. when money is staked. 6. (Bot. & Zo["o]l.) A plant or an animal, or part of a plant or animal, which has some peculiarity not usually seen in the species; an abnormal variety or growth. See {Sporting plant}, under {Sporting}. 7. A sportsman; a gambler. [Slang] {In sport}, in jest; for play or diversion. ``So is the man that deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, Am not I in sport?'' --Prov. xxvi. 19. Syn: Play; game; diversion; frolic; mirth; mock; mockery; jeer.
\Sport\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Sported}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Sporting}.] 1. To play; to frolic; to wanton. [Fish], sporting with quick glance, Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold. --Milton. 2. To practice the diversions of the field or the turf; to be given to betting, as upon races. 3. To trifle. ``He sports with his own life.'' --Tillotson. 4. (Bot. & Zo["o]l.) To assume suddenly a new and different character from the rest of the plant or from the type of the species; -- said of a bud, shoot, plant, or animal. See {Sport}, n., 6. --Darwin. Syn: To play; frolic; game; wanton.
\Sport\, v. t. 1. To divert; to amuse; to make merry; -- used with the reciprocal pronoun. Against whom do ye sport yourselves? --Isa. lvii. 4. 2. To represent by any knd of play. Now sporting on thy lyre the loves of youth. --Dryden. 3. To exhibit, or bring out, in public; to use or wear; as, to sport a new equipage. [Colloq.] --Grose. 4. To give utterance to in a sportive manner; to throw out in an easy and copious manner; -- with off; as, to sport off epigrams. --Addison. {To sport one's oak}. See under {Oak}, n.