King James Bible Dictionary

SPORT, noun

1. That which diverts and makes merry; play; game; diversion; also, mirth. The word signifies both the cause and the effect; that which produces mirth, and the mirth or merriment produced.

Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight.

Here the word denotes the cause of amusement.

They called Samson out of the prison-house; and he made them sport Judges 16:25.

Here sport is the effect.

2. Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth.

Then make sport at me, then let me be your jest.

They made a sport of his prophets.

3. That with which one plays, or which is driven about.

To 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.

4. Play; idle jingle.

An author who should introduce such a sport of words upon our stage, would meet with small applause.

5. Diversion of the field, as fowling, hunting, fishing.

In sport To do a thing in sport is to do it in jest, for play or diversion.

So is the man that deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, am not I in sport? Proverbs 26:19.

SPORT, verb transitive

1. To divert; to make merry; used with the reciprocal pronoun.

Against whom do ye sport yourselves? Isaiah 47:1.

2. To represent by any kind of play.

Now sporting on thy lyre the love of youth.

SPORT, verb intransitive

1. To play; to frolick; to wanton.

See the brisk lambs that sport along the mead.

2. To trifle. The man that laughs at religion sports with his own salvation.

SPORTER, noun One who sports.

SPORTFUL, adjective

1. Merry; frolicksome; full of jesting; indulging in mirth or play; as a sportful companion.

Down he alights among the sportful herd.

2. Ludicrous; done in jest or for mere play.

These are no sportful productions of the soil.

SPORTFULLY, adverb In mirth; in jest; for the sake of diversion; playfully.

SPORTFULNESS, noun Play; merriment; frolick; a playful disposition; playfulness; as the sportfulness of kids and lambs.

SPORTIVE, adjective

1. Gay; merry; wanton; frolicksome.

Is it I that drive thee from the sportive court?

2. Inclined to mirth; playful; as a sportive humor.

SPORTIVENESS, noun

1. Playfulness; mirth; merriment.

2. Disposition to mirth.

SPORTLESS, adjective Without sport or mirth; joyless.

SPORTSMAN, noun [sport and man.]

1. One who pursues the sports of the field; one who hunts, fishes and fowls.

2. One skilled in the sports of the field.

SPORTULARY, adjective [Latin , a basket, an alms-basket.] Subsisting on alms or charitable contributions. [Little used.]

SPORTULE, noun [Latin , a little basket.] An alms; a dole; a charitable gift or contribution. [Not in use.]