Meanings
- uncountableplayfulness
In long winter nights it was hard to tell who enjoyed sportfulness the better, the children who romped the floor, or the parents who, with lighted countenance, looked at them.
1894, Rev. John Gerardus Fagg, Forty Years in South China1 more example
'Sometimes,' he writes, in a characteristic letter, 'when I find myself transported with jollity and love of company, I hang lead to my heels, and reduce to my thoughts my fortunes, my years, the duties of a man, of a friend, of a husband, of a father, and all the incumbencies of a family; when sadness dejects me, either I countermine it with another sadness, or I kindle squibs about me again, and fly into sportfulness and company.'
1917, Arthur Symons, Figures of Several Centuries
Origin
Cite this entry
sportfulness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sportfulness
“sportfulness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sportfulness. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sportfulness,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sportfulness.
Source: sportfulness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.