_Yale Tomahawk_,
May, 1852.

SPORT. To exhibit or bring out in public; as, to _sport_ a new
equipage.--_Grose_.

This word was in great vogue in England in the year 1783 and 1784;
but is now sacred to men of _fashion_, both in England and
America.

With regard to the word _sport_, they [the Cantabrigians]
_sported_ knowing, and they _sported_ ignorant,--they _sported_ an
AEgrotat, and they _sported_ a new coat,--they _sported_ an Exeat,
they _sported_ a Dormiat, &c.--_Gent. Mag._, 1794, p. 1085.

I'm going to serve my country,
And _sport_ a pretty wife.
_Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854, Yale Coll.

To _sport oak_, or a door, is to fasten a door for safety or
convenience.

If you call on a man and his door is _sported_, signifying that he
is out or busy, it is customary to pop your card through the
little slit made for that purpose.--_Bristed's Five Years in an
Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 336.

Some few constantly turn the keys of their churlish doors, and
others, from time to time, "_sport oak_."--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I.
p. 268.

SPORTING-DOOR. At the English universities, the name given to the
outer door of a student's room, which can be _sported_ or fastened
to prevent intrusion.

Their impregnable _sporting-doors_, that defy alike the hostile
dun and the too friendly "fast man."--_Bristed's Five Years in an
Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 3.

SPREAD. A feast of a more humble description than a GAUDY. Used at
Cambridge, England.

This puts him in high spirits again, and he gives a large
_spread_, and gets drunk on the strength of it.--_Gradus ad
Cantab._, p. 129.

He sits down with all of them, about forty or fifty, to a most
glorious _spread_, ordered from the college cook, to be served up
in the most swell style possible.--_Ibid._, p. 129.

SPROUT. Any _branch_ of education is in student phrase a _sprout_.
This peculiar use of the word is said to have originated at Yale.

SPRUNG. The positive, of which _tight_ is the comparative, and
_drunk_ the superlative.

"One swallow makes not spring," the poet sung,
But many swallows make the fast man _sprung_.
_MS. Poem_, by F.E. Felton.

See TIGHT.

SPY. In some of the American colleges, it is a prevailing opinion
among the students, that certain members of the different classes
are encouraged by the Faculty to report what they have seen or
ascertained in the conduct of their classmates, contrary to the
laws of the college.