rare. [f. SPORT sb.1 or v. + -LING.]

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  1.  A small sportive or playful animal, bird, etc.

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c. 1720.  A. Philips, Odes, To Miss Carteret, 20. When again the lambkins play, Pretty sportlings full of May.

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c. 1720.  Swift, On Rover [in ridicule of prec.], 34. Where the linnets sit and sing, Little sportlings of the spring.

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  † 2.  A sport or abnormal variation. Obs.1

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1723.  P. Blair, Pharmaco-Bot., I. 16. All the other are only sportlings from them.

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