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sporting

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have sporting blood

1. To have a natural love of sports or athletics. This town has sporting blood in its veins, and the people here will gather together with unmatched enthusiasm to support all of their local teams.

2. To have an adventurous, risk-taking, and/or thrill-seeking personality or disposition; to be highly competitive or ready to accept a challenge. You have to have sporting blood to make it in this sort of cutthroat business, but the rewards are all the higher for it. I'm not one to rise up to the challenges of bullies, but my brother Seamus has sporting blood and backs down from no one.

See also: blood, have, sporting

sporting chance

A very good possibility (of achieving success). I've seen him practice, and there's a sporting chance he'll win the competition.

See also: chance, sporting

sporting chance

a reasonably good chance. If you hurry, you have a sporting chance of catching the bus. The firm has only a sporting chance of getting the export order.

See also: chance, sporting

a sporting chance

a good chance that something will happen, although it is not certain It's by no means definite but there's a sporting chance he'll get the job.

See also: chance, sporting

sporting blood

Willingness to take risks, as in His sporting blood won't let him stay away from the races. This idiom uses sporting in the sense of "associated with gambling."

See also: blood, sporting

sporting chance, a

A fair chance for success, as in She thinks she has a sporting chance for being named bureau chief. [Colloquial; late 1800s]

See also: sporting