sportiveness - What does it mean?

Noun

(-)

the state of being sportive

*{{quote-book|year=1890|author=Theo. Stephenson Browne|title=In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda|chapter=|edition= citation

|passage=You will see the tame horse in the paddock gallop about for his pleasure, and the wild horse on the prairie will start and run for miles in mere sportiveness . }}

*{{quote-book|year=1922|author=David Garnett|title=Lady Into Fox|chapter=|edition= citation

|passage=Then he would play with his vixen, she encouraging him with her pretty sportiveness . }}

*{{quote-book|year=1907|author=Edited by Rev. James Wood|title=The Nuttall Encyclopaedia|chapter=|edition= citation

|passage=OMAR KHAYYAM, astronomer-poet of Persia, born at Naishapur, in Khorassan; lived in the later half of the 11th century, and died in the first quarter of the 12th; wrote a collection of poems which breathe an Epicurean spirit, and while they occupy themselves with serious problems of life, do so with careless sportiveness , intent he on the enjoyment of the sensuous pleasures of life, like an easy-going Epicurean. }}