sportively

adverb

as in playfully

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for sportively
  1. playfully
  2. animatedly
  3. buoyantly
  4. airily
  5. skittishly
  6. lively
  7. briskly
  8. energetically
Adverb
  • Ranch appeared to take the World Cup by storm, at one point even drawing a response from the TSA, which playfully warned fans about bringing bottles out of the country.
    — Rohan Nadkarni, NBC news, 19 July 2026
  • The booking is the latest payoff in Riot Fest’s long-running tradition of playfully courting celebrities in addition to its fan-favorite music acts.
    — Lily Brown, PEOPLE, 16 July 2026
Definition of playfully
Adverb
  • Alqasimi speaks animatedly about Alfred Hitchcock’s framing techniques in midcentury films like Rear Window and Rope, and the idea of withholding a complete view in order to sustain curiosity.
    — Mona Basharat, Architectural Digest, 25 June 2026
  • Last season Hustus handled more than 16,000 lobsters all while chatting animatedly with visitors from around the world—and often introducing them to their first tastes of lobster.
    — Arati Menon, Condé Nast Traveler, 7 June 2026
Definition of animatedly
Adverb
  • The song's interplay between choir and orchestra is buoyantly euphoric, opening a door to bolder, more intentionally progressive and soulful sounds in the country's mainstream.
    — Marcus K. Dowling, The Tennessean, 2 May 2025
Definition of buoyantly
Adverb
  • Still, while these surfaces are clearly meant to reflect deeper emotional and cultural truths, Coppola’s mining of them is done glancingly, airily.
    — Naomi Fry, New Yorker, 21 Mar. 2026
Definition of airily
Adverb
  • The horse, not sensing any guidance on its ribcage, begins to move skittishly in tight, concentric circles.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 6 Feb. 2026
  • While skittishly edited, the film nevertheless builds up Faithfull’s biography in basic chronological order.
    — Leslie Felperin, HollywoodReporter, 31 Aug. 2025
Definition of skittishly
Adverb
  • Order a bottle of César wine – a lively dry white produced for the sister hotel in Lanzarote and only available through this collection of hotels.
    — Jonathan Samuels, TheWeek, 17 July 2026
  • One day, a young Jonah — lively as ever — jumped knee-first onto his father’s lap, in the wheelchair.
    — Luca Evans, Denver Post, 21 June 2026
Definition of lively
Adverb
  • Screenwriters Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller briskly sketch in the legend that hovers like a stormcloud waiting to descend over life in the lush coconut groves and on the golden beaches.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 8 July 2026
  • The 2025 ceremony honoring Conan O’Brien built toward an ambitious finale; this one moved briskly, with less spectacle and little sentimentality.
    — Andy Hoglund, Entertainment Weekly, 29 June 2026
Definition of briskly
Adverb
  • Plenty of his peers filled the void, none more energetically than Chesney, who has by now built a beachy brand that almost rivals Buffett’s.
    — Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker, 19 July 2026
  • There was also a large contingent of Iranian fans who energetically waved the nation’s current flag.
    — Todd Harmonson, Oc Register, 16 June 2026
Definition of energetically
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Sportively.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sportively. Accessed 22 Jul. 2026.

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