Blurred Definitions Of Sport Essay

Kieran FitzGerald 14702235 - Making History HIS10230

How have definitions of the word 'sport' changed over the centuries?

The definition of sport is one of the most blurred definitions in the dictionary, with each having different interpretations including various different terms generally based around a few common themes, such as competition, leisure, or skill. There are many questions raised on whether certain activities, or arts such as dancing, fall into the increasingly large category of sport. The answers to these questions depend on who you ask, leading to an often long winded attempt to define sport by encapsulating all possible entities, so as not to offend. It could be broadly guessed or estimated that sport and its definition has been fairly constant over time, yet the sports themselves might not have shared the same values. The motivations for playing sport, the world of sport aside from physical exercise the watching and supporting of

Goodhart & Chataway attempt to cover the many aspects of sport into four parts, sport for exercise, gambling, representation, and as a spectacle. However the title of the book, ‘war without weapons’ suggests a fifth category, of sport for military training. While their definition of sport is debatable, it offers a basic checklist for a sport. Over time the definitions of sports and how they have been played, used, participated in, watched, profited from, documented and gambled on has changed and the extent to which each of these aspects of sport have been present has varied. This essay will examine the changes of sport and it’s definition through the centuries and the ways in which sport has grown to include more sections of society such as women, taking a chronological approach to discuss the