Also 6 Sc. sportour. [f. SPORT v. + -ER2. Cf. DISPORTER.]
† 1. Sc. One who amuses or diverts others; a buffoon or jester. Obs.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), I. 199. He tuk sic delite in singaris, sportouris, and menstralis.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., II. 14. To seik out … all persounis, minstrelis, gemsteris, sportouris, gyuen till ydlenes. Ibid., 30. Be a certane sportour [L. morione] he was spyet.
2. One who is given to, or takes part in, sport of any kind; a gamester; a sportsman or sporting man.
1611. Cotgr., Iouēur, a player, gamester; dallier, sporter.
1658. E. Phillips, Myst. Love, 89. There was a Gallant in the Town, a brave and jolly Sporter.
1684. D’Urfey, Races at New-market, in Bagford Ball. (1876), 80. Run and endeavour to bubble the sporters.
1709. Brit. Apollo, No. 44. 2/2. The Sporters in Venus’s Garden.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pickle, viii. The beast [a horse] was too keen a sporter to choose any other way than that which the stag followed.
1768. Woman of Honor, III. 36. The great sporters at the races have no … idea of keeping up the breed of horses.
1810. Splendid Follies, III. 192. This illustrious-hearted young sporter.
b. A sporting dog.
1825. Loudon, Encycl. Agric., § 6643. The trouble occasioned to the master will be trifling, because connected with a pleasing employ to him as a sportsman, and who will thus have his own sporters for nothing.
c. As a moth-name.
1832. J. Rennie, Consp. Butterfl. & Moths, 81. The Sporter (Diphthera ludifica).
† 3. transf. = SPORT sb.1 6 b. Obs. rare.
1723. P. Blair, Pharmaco-Bot., I. 16. These [varieties] may justly be called Sporters or Strollers, so many Lusus Naturæ sporting themselves from more simple Colours [etc.].
4. One who trifles with something serious.
1834. J. Brown, Sanctification, vii. 330. A sporter with my misery, he would have but tormented me before the time.
5. colloq. One who sports or wears a garment.
1892. Daily News, 6 July, 3/6. The sporters of special blazers and dainty flannels look hardly less miserable.
