disport

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English disport, also desport,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman disport and Old French desport,^[4][5][6][7] a noun from the verb.^[4][5][8] The verb is inherited from Middle English disporten, also desporten,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman desporter and Old French desporter,^[4][9][5][6] from des- (“apart, away”), from Latin dis-, and porter (“to carry”),^[9][4][10] from portō (“to carry”),^[5][9][11] which Etymonline takes from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to lead, pass over”).^[5] Literally the verb means "to carry away", as of the attention from serious or sad matters;^[5][9][4] the OED compares the same development in French divertir and déduire,^[4] and Etymonline in distract and divert.^[5] Skeat instead explained the original sense as ceasing from labour.^[12] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1121–25, the noun from 1150–70.^[13] Modern French has déporter, and Mayhew and Skeat compare Italian diportare.^[6][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Diversion from serious duties, recreation or amusement: the noun in 1303, in Mannyng's Handlyng Synne;^[4] Etymonline dates it to about 1300.^[5] The verb follows in about 1374, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, meaning to divert someone from sadness or to entertain;^[4] Barnhart's first record is about 1380, in his House of Fame.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Anglo-Norman already had the range that English took over: the verb meant to take away and to spare, but also to comfort, to entertain and, reflexively, to enjoy oneself, and the noun meant delight, entertainment and relief.^[13] In English the noun soon came to name a particular pastime or game, and in the late 14th century also the game of love.^[4][5][2] Chaucer used it often, 25 times in all.^[14] Weekley explains the verb's intransitive use as growing out of the reflexive one, to disport oneself;^[15] the OED records the reflexive use from about 1385 and the intransitive from 1480,^[4] though Etymonline and the Middle English Dictionary have it by the late 14th century.^[5][2] The transitive use "to amuse someone" died out in the later 17th century,^[4][6] and the word came to suggest frolicking or playing without restraint.^[6][4] Its shortened form, sport, took over most of its work:^[15][16] Hoad calls sport an aphetic form of the word, and Ayto dates the main modern sense of athletic contests to the mid 19th century.^[8][16] Johnson (1755) analysed the noun as dis and sport and glossed it as play, pastime and merriment.^[17]

Timeline

• 1303 – noun, diversion, recreation, amusement.^[4]
• c. 1374 – verb, to divert from sadness, to amuse (obsolete by the later 17th century).^[4][6]
• c. 1380 – noun, a pastime or game.^[4]
• c. 1385 – reflexive verb, to amuse or enjoy oneself.^[4]
• c. 1405 – noun, merriment, fun (obsolete after 1801).^[4]
• 1480 – intransitive verb, to amuse oneself, to frolic.^[4] Etymonline dates this use to the late 14th century.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To amuse oneself in a lively way; to frolic or gambol, often with a reflexive pronoun: Otters disported themselves in the shallows.^{[18][10][19][4]}
2. To display.^[10]
3. (obsolete, c. 1374–1665) To divert, amuse or entertain another person.^[4][6][19]

Noun

1. (archaic) Diversion, recreation, amusement.^[4][18][6]
2. (archaic) A pastime, game or sport.^[4][19][6]
3. (obsolete, c. 1405–1801) Merriment, mirth, fun.^[4][6][19]

Word family

• disportment

Related words

• sport
• deport
• port

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster