Beside their legitimate use, illustrated in quotations, 1802, 1803, 1852, 1853, these words have acquired a sinister meaning. [See especially 1861.]
[1802. His debut, however, is perhaps intended to shew us that he is a sportsman, by the use of the word “Bevy of hungry expectants.” Of which number he vows in Yankee phrase, that he’s not one, HE himself—who has taken up so many pages to define his own excellence—he never was an expectant for any office, nor would he accept of one were it to be offered to him, let it be ever so lucrative?—J. T. Callender, ‘Letters to Alexander Hamilton, King of the Feds,’ p. 8.] (Italics in the original.)
[1803. The park and the other neighbouring patches of wood were filled with sportsmen [who shot many pigeons].—Mass. Spy, April 13.]
1835. From his description I was able to inform him that his new acquaintance was Lee, the famous Virginian sportsman, as they politely term such black-legged cattle.—H. J. Nott, ‘The Life of Thomas Singularity,’ p. 43 (Lond.).
[a. 1852. A wounded duck beset by the sportsman’s dog.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iii. 57].
[1853. Where is the sportsman?—Weekly Oregonian, Dec. 10. The word is here used of a hunter.]
1861. To-day as I was going down Broadway, some dozen of the most over-dressed men I ever saw were pointed out to me as “sports;” that is, men who lived by gambling-houses and betting on races.—W. H. Russell, ‘My Diary, North and South,’ March 23.
1861. “Why, they told me they were sportsmen, Willy, and—” “You green-horn!” said my brother, good-humoredly; “were you thinking of fox-hunting or partridge-popping?” ‘Sportsman,’ in America, means sharper, gambler, thief, swindler, gallows-bird!”—Harper’s Weekly, v. 602 (Sept. 21).
1878. What I particularly admire in the “sports” is the fine morality they display in always having the loser in the wrong. The latter is certain he is going to cheat the gambler, otherwise he would never venture.—J. H. Beadle, ‘Western Wilds,’ p. 104.
