Definition of "sportive" [sport•ive]

• Playful; frolicsome. (adjective)
• Relating to or interested in sports. (adjective)
• Archaic Amorous or wanton. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It originated in sportive conversation at poor Lovell's, and we agreed each to produce an act by the next evening; – S.T.C. the first, I the second, and Lovell the third."
• "It takes its name from the frolicsome spirit supposed to be imparted by it to its imbibers, whose gambols remind the observant Teuton of those of the bock, or goat, a figure of which animal, engaged in sportive dalliance with a beer cask, is usually to be seen as a sign in places where this brewage is on tap."
• "It originated in sportive conversation at poor Lovell's, and we agreed each to produce an act by the next evening; — S.T.C. the first, I the second, and Lovell the third."