Sport /(spōrt)/

Sport

n.
  1. That which diverts, and makes mirth; pastime; amusement.
    It is as sport to a fool to do mischief.
    — Prov. x. 23.
    Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight.
    Think it but a minute spent in sport.
  2. Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth; derision.
    Then make sport at me; then let me be your jest.
  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.
    Never does man appear to greater disadvantage than when he is the sport of his own ungoverned passions.
    — 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. 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. (Bot. & Zool.)
  7. A sportsman; a gambler. [Slang]

Phrases & Compounds

In sport
in jest; for play or diversion.

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.
  2. To practice the diversions of the field or the turf; to be given to betting, as upon races.
  3. To trifle.
  4. 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. (Bot. & Zool.)

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 kind of play.
    Now sporting on thy lyre the loves of youth.
  3. To exhibit, or bring out, in public; to use or wear; as, to sport a new equipage. [Colloq.]
  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. [R.]

Phrases & Compounds

To sport one's oak
See under Oak, n.