Sport

How to spell sport

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sport

What does sport mean?

1. nounAn activity involving physical exertion and skill, often played competitively under set rules.
2. verbTo wear or display something proudly or conspicuously.
3. nounA person who behaves with good humour, especially when teased or when losing.

Sport in a sentence

• noun

  Rugby is a contact sport that demands real stamina.

• verb

  The new manager likes to sport a bright tartan tie at meetings.

• noun

  She lost the bet but paid up like a good sport.

• noun

  The school encourages every pupil to take up at least one sport.

• verb

  Both runners sport matching trainers at the start line.

• noun

  He was a real sport about the office prank.

Where does sport come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Sport is a clipped form of the older English verb 'disport', which English took from the Anglo-French 'desporter', meaning 'to carry away' or 'to divert oneself'. That word was built from the Latin elements 'dis-' (away) and 'portare' (to carry), so the literal idea was of carrying your mind away from work and worry, in other words amusing yourself. By the 1400s English speakers had trimmed the first syllable, leaving the snappy 'sport', and for centuries it simply meant any pleasant pastime or diversion. The narrower modern sense of organised physical games and athletic competition grew up gradually and became dominant only in the nineteenth century. The same 'portare' root for carrying still shows up in everyday words such as 'transport', 'export', and 'porter'.

How the word is built

• sport (shortened from disport: to carry away, to amuse oneself)