Sport (spōrt), 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. & Zoöl.) 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. & Zoöl.) 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.
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