1680s, "make ridiculous" (a sense now obsolete); c. 1700, "treat with contemptuous merriment, make sport of, deride," from ridicule (n.) or else from French ridiculer, from ridicule. Chapman, for a verb, used ridiculize. Related: Ridiculed; ridiculing.

c. 1300, "activity that offers amusement, pleasure, or recreation," from Anglo-French disport, Old French desport, from disporter/desporter "divert, amuse" (see disport (v.)). From late 14c. as "a sport or game; the game of love, flirtation."

1709, "to play rudely and boisterously, sport, frolic," perhaps a variant of ramp (v.); but also see romp (n.). Meaning "to win (a contest) with great ease" is attested by 1888, in early use often in horse-racing. Related: Romped; romping.

"skip about in sport," 1580s; earlier gambade (c. 1500), from French gambader, from gambade (see gambol (n.)). Compare Middle English gambon "a ham" (see gammon); English dialectal gammerel "small of the leg;" gamble "a leg." Related: Gamboled; gamboling; gambolling.

"wishbone of a fowl's breast," c. 1600, from merry (adj.) + thought. So called from the sport of breaking it between two persons pulling each on an end to determine who will get a wish he made for the occasion (the winner getting the longer fragment). Also see wishbone.

"act or fact of standing in line," 1918, verbal noun from queue (v.).

"Queueing" had really become an equivalent for sport with some working-class women. It afforded an occasion and an opportunity for gossip. ["The War of Food in Britain," in The Congregationalist and Advance, April 25, 1918]

also pot-shot, 1836, "shot taken at animal simply to 'get it in the pot,' " that is, not for sport or marksmanship and with little heed paid to the preservation of the animal; from pot (n.1) + shot (n.). Extended sense of "piece of opportunistic criticism" first recorded 1926. Compare pot-hunter. Earlier as an adjective it meant "drunk" (17c.).