Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SPORT, n. [D. boert, jest; boerten, to jest; boertig, merry, facetious, jocular.]

1. That which diverts and makes merry; play; game; diversion; also, mirth. The word signifies both the cause and the effect; that which produces mirth, and the mirth or merriment produced. Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight. – Sidney. Here the word denotes the cause of amusement. They called for Samson out of the prison-house; and he made them sport. – Judges xvi. Here sport is the effect.
2. Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth. Then make sport at me, then let me be your jest. – Shak. They made a sport of his prophets. – Esdras.
3. That with which one plays, or which is driven about. To flitting leaves, the sport of every wind. – Dryden. Never does man appear to greater disadvantage than when he is the sport of his own ungoverned passions. – J. Clarke.
4. Play; idle jingle. An author who should introduce such a sport of words upon our stage, would meet with small applause. – Broome.
5. Diversion of the field, as fowling, hunting, fishing. – Clarendon. In sport. To do a thing in sport, is to do it in jest, for play or diversion. So is the man that deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, am not I in sport? – Prov. xxvi.