Word.ws English Dictionary

sphairistic

sphairistic adjective: of, like, or pertaining to tennis; tending to play tennis, especially lawn tennis, with crebrity.

Adjective

sphairistic (comparative more sphairistic, superlative most sphairistic)

  1. (historical, rare) Of, like, or pertaining to tennis; tending to play tennis, especially lawn tennis, with crebrity.
    • If you are sphairistic, you are playing tennis.2007, Barbara Ann Kipfer, Word Nerd: More Than 17,000 Fascinating Facts about Words, Sourcebooks - The Pennsylvania State University Press, page 483
    • Finally he turned to the huge volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary where he found that the word 'sphairistic', labelled 'rare', meant tennis playing.1987, Denis Joseph Grogan, Enquiries and the Reference Process - Grogan's Case Studies in Reference Work, Clive Bingley - The Michigan University Press, page 21

Examples of sphairistic in a sentence

  • Some rare words are learned formations, such as 'sphairistic' meaning 'lawn-tennis-playing'1977, Dannie Abse, More Words, British Broadcasting Corporation Publications, page 59
  • I hope it will not be taken amiss if I say that, while we have no objection to people walking behind the bowler's arm when the bowler is Australian, we deprecate its sphairistic equivalent.1975, Periodical Magazine Article Authors, The New Yorker - Volume 51 - Issues 20 to 27, F-R Publishing Corporation - The Indiana...
  • When, exactly a century, Major Wall Clopton Wingfield issued the early rules on the sphairistic.1973, Brown & Merry, Country Life, Volume 154, Country Life - Limited - The Michigan University Press, page 2024

Forms of sphairistic

comparativemore sphairistic
superlativemost sphairistic

Origin of sphairistic

From sphairistike.

Questions about sphairistic

What does sphairistic mean?
Sphairistic means of, like, or pertaining to tennis; tending to play tennis, especially lawn tennis, with crebrity.
How do you use sphairistic in a sentence?
Some rare words are learned formations, such as 'sphairistic' meaning 'lawn-tennis-playing'
What part of speech is sphairistic?
Sphairistic is an adjective.

Words near sphairistic in the dictionary

  1. sphagnorubin
  2. sphagnorubins
  3. sphagnous
  4. sphagnum
  5. sphagnums
  6. sphairistic
  7. sphairistike
  8. Sphakia
  9. Sphakiot
  10. Sphakiots
  11. sphalerite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sphairistic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “sphairistic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sphairistic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.