Sportsman

How to spell sportsman

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sportsman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sportsman mean?

1. nounA man who takes part in sport, especially as a regular or skilled participant.
2. nounA man who behaves fairly and graciously, accepting victory or defeat with good temper.

Sportsman in a sentence

• The retired sportsman now coaches a local rugby team.

• He shook hands after losing, proving himself a real sportsman.

• As a keen sportsman, he spent every weekend on the golf course.

• A true sportsman congratulates his opponent without bitterness.

Where does sportsman come from?

Language of origin: French

This is a compound built from the everyday words 'sport' and 'man', joined by a linking 's'. The first element traces back to the Old French verb 'desporter', literally 'to carry away', which came to mean to amuse oneself or take pleasure away from work; English shortened it to 'sport' in the 1400s for diversion and pastime, only later narrowing it to athletic competition. The second element, 'man', is a native Old English word for an adult male that has been stable in spelling for over a thousand years. By the early 1700s the two were locked together as 'sportsman' to describe a man devoted to hunting, shooting, or other field pursuits, and the meaning gradually widened to anyone who plays games. The spelling trap is purely the hidden 's' in the middle: writers who think of 'sport' plus 'man' sometimes drop it, but the linking 's' is essential and reflects the older plural-style joining seen in words like 'craftsman' and 'tradesman'.

How the word is built

• sport (from disport: to amuse, divert)
• -s- (linking/genitive)
• man (Germanic: adult male)