athletics

[ ath-let-iks ]

noun

1. (usually used with a plural verb) athletic sports, as running, rowing, or boxing.
2. British. track-and-field events.
3. (usually used with a singular verb) the practice of athletic exercises; the principles of athletic training.

athletics

/ æθˈlɛtɪks /

noun

1. 1. track and field events
   2. ( as modifier )

      an athletics meeting

2. sports or exercises engaged in by athletes
3. the theory or practice of athletic activities and training

Pronunciation Note

See athlete.

Word History and Origins

Origin of athletics¹

First recorded in 1595–1605; athletic, -ics

Example Sentences

In a building just outside of the Mission Valley stadium site, San Diego State University has transformed an office into a kind of museum celebrating its athletics tradition and future plans.

From Voice of San Diego

In fact, and in a delicious irony, it was now the track itself that suddenly posed a threat to the historical integrity of athletics records.

From Outside Online

She had put the pool behind her, and began working at the University of California, Berkeley athletics department, including with the school’s swim team.

From Time

Three months after Lobalu went AWOL from Loroupe’s team, a Swiss refugee center contacted Markus Hagmann, an athletics coach in Saint Gallen, Switzerland, saying there were two South Sudanese men who wanted to run.

From Time

Dmitry Shlyakhtin, who pledged he would return RusAF to the world athletics stage and “restore trust” upon becoming federation’s president 2016, stepped down in 2019 after he was suspended for obstructing an investigation into doping.

From Time

In the 2001 ALDS, the Yankees led the Oakland Athletics 1-0 in the seventh inning.

From The Daily Beast

For thousands of kids, particularly poor kids in the South, where football is a way of life, athletics has been a road out.

From The Daily Beast

I mean, college athletics, football in particular, has changed dramatically over the years.

From The Daily Beast

Afterwards, in the afternoon, campers pick between theater, dance, athletics, and crafts.

From The Daily Beast

That is, like all things, a matter of perspective (as well as being a question of whether one is a Giants or an Athletics fan).

From The Daily Beast

My objections to your sports and athletics seem to have very little reality about them, children, said Mrs. Belding.

From Project Gutenberg

The sports themselves were those that we are accustomed to group together as track and field athletics.

From Project Gutenberg

The latter learned that in athletics especially the rivalry between the two lower and the two upper classes was intense.

From Project Gutenberg

Having ploughed the mortgaged acres, and tossed hay and broken colts, college athletics struck him as rather puerile diversion.

From Project Gutenberg

Respite came to him for a year or two before he went to college because athletics became his god.

From Project Gutenberg