sport (spɔːt
)
Definitions
noun
- an individual or group activity pursued for exercise or pleasure, often involving the testing of physical capabilities and taking the form of a competitive game such as football, tennis, etc
- such activities considered collectively
- any particular pastime indulged in for pleasure
- the pleasure derived from a pastime, esp hunting, shooting, or fishing ⇒
we had good sport today
- playful or good-humoured joking ⇒
to say a thing in sport
- derisive mockery or the object of such mockery ⇒
to make sport of someone
- someone or something that is controlled by external influences ⇒
the sport of fate
- informal good, bad, etc a person who reacts cheerfully in the face of adversity, esp a good loser
- informal a person noted for being scrupulously fair and abiding by the rules of a game
- informal a person who leads a merry existence, esp a gambler ⇒
he's a bit of a sport
- Australian New Zealand informal a form of address used esp between males
- biology
- an animal or plant that differs conspicuously in one or more aspects from other organisms of the same species, usually because of a mutation
- an anomalous characteristic of such an organism
verb
- (tr) informal to wear or display in an ostentatious or proud manner ⇒
she was sporting a new hat
- (intr) to skip about or frolic happily
- to amuse (oneself), esp in outdoor physical recreation
- (intr) with to dally or trifle (with)
- (tr) away rare to squander (time or money) ⇒
sporting one's life away
- (intr) with archaic to make fun (of)
- (intr) biology to produce or undergo a mutation
See also
sportsAlternative Forms
ˈsporter noun ˈsportful adjective ˈsportfully adverb ˈsportfulness nounWord Origin
C15 sporten, variant of disporten to disportQuotations
"I'm fanatical about sport: there seems to me something almost religious about the fact that human beings can organize play, the spirit of play"
"When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity"
"The flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals"
"To be No. 1 in sport you have to have a narrow tunnel vision. Dedication. You want to call it selfishness, arrogance, whatever. It's dog eat dog. There are no prisoners taken; there's none expected"
"It's more than a game. It's an institution"
"cricket - a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some conception of eternity"
"Golf is a good walk spoiled"
Translations
- British English:
sport
Sports are games and other competitive activities which need physical effort and skill.Basketball is my favourite sport.spɔːt NOUN Basketball is my favourite sport.
- Spanish:
deporte
nm
- French:
sport
nm
- German:
Sport
nm
- Chinese: 体育 n
- Arabic: رِيَاضَة n
- Portuguese: desporto nm
- Russian: спорт nm
- Croatian: sport nm
- Czech: sport nm
- Danish: sport nutr
- Dutch: sport n
- Finnish: urheilu n
- Greek: άθλημα nnt
- Italian: sport nm
- Japanese: スポーツ n
- Korean: 스포츠 n
- Norwegian: idrett nm
- Polish: sport nm
- Brazilian Portuguese: esporte nm
- European Spanish:
deporte
nm
- Swedish: sport nutr
- Thai: กีฬา n
- Turkish: spor n
- Vietnamese: môn thể thao n
Usage examples
People turn a blind eye for a bloody football game; the canker has eaten into the national sport.
, A Song at Twilight (1989)More people subscribe to the culture than they subscribe to the sport.
Country Life (2004)My sport was long-distance running, middle-distance running, which is a very lonely sport.
Irish Times (2002)For the second-largest televised sport , I think that's scandalous.
Glasgow Herald (2001)Like any other `on-the-edge' sport , ocean racing can be extremely dangerous.
, FATAL STORM (2001)