[f. SPORT v.]
1. Engaged in sport or play.
1653. Holcroft, Procopius, Vandal Wars, I. 22. It was then acounted as an idle riddle among sporting boys.
1725. Pope, Odyss., VI. 112. O’er the green mead the sporting virgins play.
† b. Sportive; playful. Obs. rare.
1600. J. Pory, trans. Leo’s Africa, I. 40. [An elephant] will in a sporting maner gently heave up with his snowte such persons as he meeteth.
1656. W. Du Gard, trans. Comenius’ Gate Lat. Unl., 311. They shall feed not upon Ambrosia and Nectar (as the sporting poets did fain) but on hidden … sweets.
1712. Swift, Wonderful Prophecy, Wks. 1751, III. I. 173. Think not that this baleful dog-star only shaketh his tail at you in waggery…. It is not a sporting tail, but a fiery tail.
c. Of plants, etc. (See SPORT v. 4 b.)
1850. Beck’s Florist, 211. We would recommend a trial of the seed from these sporting flowers.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., i. (1860), 9. ‘Sporting plants’; by this term gardeners mean a single bud or offset, which suddenly assumes a new and sometimes very different character from that of the rest of the plant.
1886. Field, 6 March, 303/2. The sporting character of roses was as much observed at that time as now.
2. Interested in, accustomed to take part in, field sports or similar amusements.
1748. C’tess Shaftesbury, in Priv. Lett. Ld. Malmesbury (1870), I. 71. There we met several sporting gentlemen.
1828. Lytton, Pelham, II. xxiv. Sporting characters … were a species of bipeds that I would never recognise as belonging to the human race.
1859. Thackeray, Virgin., vi. Harry was away from home with some other sporting friends.
1885. Miss Braddon, Wyllard’s Weird, iv. ‘I can’t think what has come to Grahame,’ muttered a sporting squire to his next neighbour.
b. Esp. sporting man; now used to denote a sportsman of an inferior type or one who is interested in sport from purely mercenary motives.
1840. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. I. St. Odille, vi. Now I think I’ve been told,—for I’m no sporting man,—That the ‘knowing-ones’ call this by far the best plan.
1853. R. S. Surtees, Sp. Tour (1893), 235. ‘Is he inclined to go the pace?’ ‘Oh, quite,’ replied Jack; ‘his great desire is to be thought a sportsman.’ ‘A sportsman, or a sporting man?’ asked Soapey.
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 21 Oct., 6/1. Every sporting man is flattered if termed a sportsman, but it would be almost an insult to speak to a sportsman as a sporting man.
3. Characterized by sport or sportsmanlike conduct; affording or producing sport.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, iv. (1880), 136. It is the most sporting way of fishing for them.
1893. Times, 29 April, 11/4. The debate was naturally too one-sided to afford any sporting interest either to the combatants or to the spectators.
1897. Miss Kingsley, W. Africa, 617. Those very sporting vessels, the British and African, and the Royal African steamers.
b. Sporting chance, a chance such as is met with or taken in sport; one of an uncertain or doubtful nature. colloq.
1897. Miss Kingsley, W. Africa, 252. One must diminish dead certainties to the level of sporting chances along here.
