Sporty

How to spell sporty

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sporty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sporty mean?

1. adjectiveFond of or good at physical games and athletic activity.
2. adjectiveStylish and designed to look fast or energetic, especially of clothes or vehicles.

Sporty in a sentence

• Her sporty teenager spends every weekend at the tennis club.

• They traded the family saloon for a small sporty hatchback with a turbo engine.

• He was always the sporty one in the family, captaining three teams at once.

• The jacket had a sporty cut that suited his casual weekend wardrobe.

Where does sporty come from?

Language of origin: French

The word grows out of 'sport', which English clipped from the older 'disport', a borrowing from the Old French desport meaning 'amusement, pastime, or relaxation'. That French noun came from the verb desporter, literally 'to carry away' (from Latin dis-, meaning 'apart', and portare, meaning 'to carry'), the idea being that play carries the mind away from work and worry. By the fifteenth century 'sport' had narrowed in English to athletic games and outdoor pursuits, and the adjective 'sporty' was formed much later, in the nineteenth century, by adding the everyday suffix -y. It first described people keen on sport or living a fast, fashionable life, and then spread to objects, especially cars and clothes that look fast or stylish. The doubled idea is worth remembering for spelling: the word is simply the noun 'sport' plus a single -y, with no extra letters.

How the word is built

• sport (root: physical games/pastime, from Old French desport 'amusement')
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'having the qualities of')