sportive

[ spawr-tiv, spohr- ]
See synonyms for: sportivesportivelysportiveness on Thesaurus.com

adjective
  1. playful or frolicsome; jesting, jocose, or merry: a sportive puppy.

  2. done in sport, rather than in earnest: a sportive show of affection.

  1. pertaining to or of the nature of a sport or sports.

  2. Biology. mutative.

  3. Archaic. ardent; wanton.

Origin of sportive

1
First recorded in 1580–90; sport + -ive

Other words for sportive

Other words from sportive

  • spor·tive·ly, adverb
  • spor·tive·ness; Archaic, sport·a·bil·i·ty, noun
  • un·spor·tive, adjective
  • un·spor·tive·ly, adverb
  • un·spor·tive·ness, noun

Words Nearby sportive

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use sportive in a sentence

  • It was plain that these feet had kicked off sportive children oftener than they had plodded with freight through miry lanes.

    English: Composition and Literature | W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
  • Celebrate the bull among the cows, for it is the sportive host of the Maruts; he grew as he tasted the rain.

  • They the sportive, the roaring, with bright spears, the shakers of the clouds have themselves glorified their greatness.

  • The theory was charming in itself, and only a woman like Edith, whose fancy had always been sportive, would have dreamed it.

    The Art of Disappearing | John Talbot Smith
  • He is restless as the ocean, impelled by every contrary wind, and tossed about by every sportive billow.

British Dictionary definitions for sportive

sportive

/ (ˈspɔːtɪv) /


adjective
  1. playful or joyous

  2. done in jest rather than seriously

  1. of, relating to, or interested in sports

  2. obsolete wanton or amorous: a sportive wench

Derived forms of sportive

  • sportively, adverb
  • sportiveness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012