SPORT. To exhibit or bring out in public; as, to sport a new equipage.—Grose.
This word was in great vogue in England in the year 1783 and 1784; but is now sacred to men of fashion, both in England and America.
With regard to the word sport, they [the Cantabrigians] sported knowing, and they sported ignorant,—they sported an Ægrotat, and they sported a new coat,—they sported an Exeat, they sported a Dormiat, &c.—Gent. Mag., 1794, p. 1085.
I'm going to serve my country, And sport a pretty wife. Presentation Day Songs, June 14, 1854, Yale Coll.
To sport oak, or a door, is to fasten a door for safety or convenience.
If you call on a man and his door is sported, signifying that he is out or busy, it is customary to pop your card through the little slit made for that purpose.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 336.
Some few constantly turn the keys of their churlish doors, and others, from time to time, "sport oak."—Harv. Mag., Vol. I. p. 268.
SPORTING-DOOR. At the English universities, the name given to the outer door of a student's room, which can be sported or fastened to prevent intrusion.
Their impregnable sporting-doors, that defy alike the hostile dun and the too friendly "fast man."—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 3.
SPREAD. A feast of a more humble description than a GAUDY. Used at
Cambridge, England.