sport one's oak

present singular third person sports one's oak · participle present sporting one's oak · participle past sported one's oak · past sported one's oak · alternative sport the oak

1. datedintransitiveuniversity slangTo close one's door (originally the outer door of one's set of rooms in a college) as an indication that visitors are not welcome.

   My rooms are pleasant enough,[…], and separated from all mankind by a great, iron-clamped, outer door, my oak, which I sport when I go out, or want to be quiet; […]

   1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], “St. Ambrose’s College”, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 1st, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC, page 11

   5 more examples

   For arguing that a man will be plucked take the Topics following: for among men likely to be plucked [i.e., rejected after failing an examination for a degree] are these for the most part. […] He that sporteth not his oak.

   1835, Scriblerus Redivivus [pseudonym; Edward Caswall], “Topics Concerning Pluck”, in A New Art Teaching How to be Plucked, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: J. Vincent, →OCLC, pages 34–35

   One day that he had been writing a letter in Mr. Smalls' rooms, which were on the ground-floor, Verdant congratulated himself that his own rooms were on the third floor, and were thus removed from the possibility of his friends, when he had sported his oak, being able to get through his window to "chaff" him; but he soon discovered that rooms upstairs had also objectionable points in their private character, and were not altogether such eligible apartments as he had at first anticipated.

   1853, Cuthbert Bede [pseudonym; Edward Bradley], “Mr. Verdant Green’s Sports and Pastimes”, in The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, London: Nathaniel Cooke, […], →OCLC, page 104

   The custom of sporting one's oak, which is so popular an institution in the English Universities, is destined apparently to become an exotic in Cambridge. […] In England, to sport the oak is considered an act eminently proper and commendable; but we seem to think it is a habit destructive of our college freedom. If a visitor obtains no response to his tenth kick, cannot he take the hint that his company is not desirable at present and move off quietly, without informing the occupant of the said room that he knows he is there, and that he cannot see the reason why he is refused admittance.

   1871 December 8, Auspex [pseudonym], “Sporting the Oak”, in The Harvard Advocate, volume XII, number V, Cambridge, Mass.: Editors of The Harvard Advocate, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 71

   "Goodness gracious," I exclaimed, "why didn't we sport the oak? Perhaps it is your father. But surely he would hardly come at this time of day! Go at once into my bedroom."

   1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, chapter LXX, in R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, editor, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC, page 317

   Blankets were served out to hang in the front of the cubicle [in Shackleton's Hut at Cape Royds, Antarctica], in case the inhabitants wanted at any time to "sport their oak."

   1909, E[rnest] H[enry] Shackleton, “First Days in Winter Quarters”, in The Heart of the Antarctic: Being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907–1909 […], volume I, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 143

   Synonyms: sport timber