sporophyte (sporofit)

[ + Gr. φυτόν, plant.] In bot., the segment or 5857 I took him for a flash overseer sporting his salary, and I was as thick as you like with him. H. Kingsley , Geoffry Hamlyn, xxx i. 5. To cause to sport, or vary from the normal type. Dawson, Geol. Hist. of Plants, p. 258.To sport offt, to utter sportively; throw off with easy and playful copiousne . Add is on . He thus sports off a dozen epigrams. To sport one's oak. See oak. - To sport one's door. Same as to sport one's oak. Stop that, till I see whether the door is sported. Kingsley, Alton Locke, xiii. II. in trans. 1. To divert one's self; play; frolic; take part in games or other pastimes; specifically, to practise field-sports. If you come to another mans house To sport and to playe. sportive or malformations are not usually called sports . Compare spontaneity , 2 (a), and freak of nature (under freak2 ). 9. A sporting man; one who is interested in open-air sports; hence, in a bad sense, a betting man; a gambler; a blackleg. [Colloq.] "The sports ," by which is meant those who like fast living. Contemporary Rev., LIII. 228. In sport, in jest; in play; jesting. - To make sport of or (formerly) at, to laugh at; mock at; deride. It were not good She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. Shak., Much Ado, iii. 1. 58. =Syn. 1. Recreation, hilarity, merriment, mirth, jollity, gamboling.-2. Frolic, prank. sportability (spor-ta-bil'i-ti), n. [ sportable + -ity (see- bility ).] Frolicsomene ; playfulne . Sterne , Sentimental Journey, p. 82. [Rare.] [ sport + -able .] Mirthful; playful; frolicsome. Sterne , Tristram Shandy, ix. 6. [Rare.] Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 83. sportable (spor'ta-bl), a . If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work. Shak., 1 Hen. IV., i. 2. 229. stage of the life-cycle of the higher cryptogams 2. To jest; speak or act jestingly; trifle. ( Pteridophyta, Bryophyta ) in which the non-sex ual organs of reproduction are borne. It is a stage in what has been called the alternation of generations, and is the fern-plant, club-mo plant, etc., of popular language. It bears the spores in countle numbers. By some authors the word sporophore is used for sporophyte. Compare oöphyte and oophore. See Musci.