rare. [f. SPORT sb.1 or v. + -LING.]
1. A small sportive or playful animal, bird, etc.
c. 1720. A. Philips, Odes, To Miss Carteret, 20. When again the lambkins play, Pretty sportlings full of May.
c. 1720. Swift, On Rover [in ridicule of prec.], 34. Where the linnets sit and sing, Little sportlings of the spring.
† 2. A sport or abnormal variation. Obs.1
1723. P. Blair, Pharmaco-Bot., I. 16. All the other are only sportlings from them.