sport one's oak

English

WOTD – 25 November 2023

Etymology

A wooden door at St. John’s College of the University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, U.K.

From sport (“(archaic) to close or shut (a door)”) and oak (“outer (lockable) door of a set of rooms in a college (especially of the University of Cambridge or University of Oxford) or similar institution, especially one made of oak wood”).^[1] Compare French trouver visage de bois (“to find no one at home”, literally “to find a wooden face (that is, the door)”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌspɔːt wʌnz ˈəʊk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌspoɹt wʌnz ˈoʊk/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊk

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. (intransitive, originally and chiefly British, university slang, dated) 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.

   Synonym: (Inns of Court, obsolete) sport timber

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1853, Cuthbert Bede [pseudonym; Edward Bradley], “Mr. Verdant Green’s Sports and Pastimes”, in The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, London: Nathaniel Cooke, […], →OCLC, page 104:

     One day that he had been writing a letter in Mr. Smalls' rooms, which were on the ground-floor, Verdant congratulated himself that his own rooms were on the third floor, and were thus removed from the possibility of his friends, when he had sported his oak, being able to get through his window to "chaff" him; but he soon discovered that rooms upstairs had also objectionable points in their private character, and were not altogether such eligible apartments as he had at first anticipated.

   • 1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], “St. Ambrose’s College”, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 1st, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC, page 11:

     My rooms are pleasant enough, […], and separated from all mankind by a great, iron-clamped, outer door, my oak, which I sport when I go out, or want to be quiet; […]

   • 1871 December 8, Auspex [pseudonym], “Sporting the Oak”, in The Harvard Advocate, volume XII, number V, Cambridge, Mass.: Editors of The Harvard Advocate, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 71:

     The custom of sporting one's oak, which is so popular an institution in the English Universities, is destined apparently to become an exotic in Cambridge. […] In England, to sport the oak is considered an act eminently proper and commendable; but we seem to think it is a habit destructive of our college freedom. If a visitor obtains no response to his tenth kick, cannot he take the hint that his company is not desirable at present and move off quietly, without informing the occupant of the said room that he knows he is there, and that he cannot see the reason why he is refused admittance.

   • 1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, chapter LXX, in R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, editor, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC, page 317:

     "Goodness gracious," I exclaimed, "why didn't we sport the oak? Perhaps it is your father. But surely he would hardly come at this time of day! Go at once into my bedroom."

   • 1909, E[rnest] H[enry] Shackleton, “First Days in Winter Quarters”, in The Heart of the Antarctic: Being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907–1909 […], volume I, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 143:

     Blankets were served out to hang in the front of the cubicle [in Shackleton's Hut at Cape Royds, Antarctica], in case the inhabitants wanted at any time to "sport their oak."

   • 1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, chapter XII, in Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published 1912, →OCLC, page 194:

     The man who now occupied my room had sported his oak—my oak. I read the name on the visiting-card attached thereto—E. J. Craddock—and went in.

   • 1961, R[onald] V[erlin] Cassill, chapter 4, in Clem Anderson, New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 123:

     [H]e recreated something like Balliol on the prairies. He brewed tea each afternoon on his "spirit lamp" (sold at the student co-op as an alcohol burner), kept Scotch-type whisky in his cupboard, "tutored" with a Jewish boy from Brooklyn (actually the boy ghosted all his science and math work), and "sported the oak" when, as Clem conjectured later, he required a session of masturbation to the tune of Beardsley illustrations.

   • 1974, Tom Sharpe, chapter 9, in Porterhouse Blue, 1st American edition, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, →ISBN, page 95:

     Mrs. Biggs let herself into Zipser's room and sported the oak. She had no intention of being disturbed.

   • 1975, J[ohn] I[nnes] M[ackintosh] Stewart, chapter III, in Young Pattullo […] (A Staircase in Surrey; 2), London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 76:

     'And I'd feel particularly vulnerable, if I was on the ground floor like you.' / 'You could sport your oak, I suppose. But sporting your oak is said not to be quite the thing. It's felt not to be on, sporting your oak.'

   • 1984, Hallam Tennyson, “Needful Parts”, in The Haunted Mind: An Autobiography, London: André Deutsch, →ISBN, page 46:

     We were turned at a slight angle to each other, our shoulders touching and I put my hand on his crotch. Miles seemed to be expecting it. He chuckled, took a pair of compasses and jammed them into the door above the latch. This was called ‘sporting the oak’ and was the recognized way of locking oneself in. Over the next eighteen months we sported our oaks with great frequency.

Alternative forms

• sport the oak

Related terms

• sporting door

Translations

to close one’s door as an indication that visitors are not welcome

Finnish: sulkea ovi French: please add this translation if you can Macedonian: please add this translation if you can

See also

• cut someone cold, cut someone dead
• give someone the brush-off
• give someone the cold shoulder

References

1. “to sport (one’s, the) oak” under “sport, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023; “sport the oak, phrase” under “oak, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022; “oak, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023.