Word.ws English Dictionary

sported one's oak

sported one's oak is the simple past and past participle of sport one's oak.

Meaning of sport one's oak

Verb

sport one's oak (third-person singular simple present sports one's oak, present participle sporting one's oak, simple past and past participle sported one's oak)

  1. (dated, intransitive, university slang) To close one's door (originally the outer door of one's set of rooms in a college) as an indication that visitors are not welcome.
    • For arguing that a man will be plucked take the Topics following: for among men likely to be plucked [i.e., rejected after failing an examination for a degree] are these for the most part. […] He that sporteth not his oak.1835, Scriblerus Redivivus [pseudonym; Edward Caswall], “Topics Concerning Pluck”, in A New Art Teaching How to be Plucked, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: J. Vincent, →OCLC, pages 34–35
    Synonyms:
    sport timber

Questions about sported one's oak

What is sported one's oak the simple past and past participle of?
Sported one's oak is the simple past and past participle of sport one's oak.

Words near sported one's oak in the dictionary

  1. sportdiver
  2. sportdivers
  3. sportdiving
  4. sported
  5. sported away
  6. sported one's oak
  7. sported the oak
  8. sported timber
  9. sportellid
  10. sportellids
  11. sporter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sported one's oak (page history and authors); sport one's oak (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “sported one's oak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sported_one%27s_oak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.