Game vs. Sport: What's the Difference?
Edited by Harlon Moss || By Janet White || Updated on October 7, 2023
Game is a structured form of play, often for entertainment, while a sport typically involves physical exertion and competition.
Key Differences
A game generally refers to any structured activity or form of play that often has a goal or objective. A sport, on the other hand, is typically an organized, competitive activity that requires skill and physical exertion.
Games can be played solo, with toys, or on electronic devices, encompassing a wide range of activities from board games to video games. Sports, however, usually involve physical challenges and are often played in teams or between individuals in competitions.
While both games and sports can have rules, the enforcement in sports is typically stricter due to the competitive nature and the need for fairness. In games, rules can be more flexible and adaptable based on the preferences of the players.
Participation in sports often requires training, practice, and a degree of physical fitness. Games, on the other hand, can often be enjoyed without any prior experience or training.
Both games and sports can bring joy, teach valuable life lessons, and build social connections. However, sports often have an element of physical risk and the potential for injury, whereas many games are low-risk and more sedentary.
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Comparison Chart
Definition
A structured form of play, often for entertainment.
An organized, competitive activity requiring skill & physical exertion.
Physical Exertion
Not always required.
Typically required.
Competition
Can be competitive or non-competitive.
Inherently competitive.
Participation
Can often be enjoyed without training.
Often requires training and practice.
Risk
Generally low risk.
Often has a risk of physical injury.
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Game and Sport Definitions
Game
A competitive activity with rules and objectives.
The final game of the season was intense.
Sport
A diversion or recreation.
Fishing is his favorite sport.
Game
A total number of points in a competition.
The first team to reach 10 games wins.
Sport
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.
Game
A strategy or approach to a situation.
Changing jobs frequently can be a risky game.
Sport
Often sports (used with a sing. verb) Such activities considered as a group
Sports is a good way for children to get exercise.
Game
An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime
Party games.
Word games.
Sport
A usually challenging activity undertaken for amusement
"the sport of trying to eat [a bratwurst] with anything fewer than four paper napkins" (Jane Kramer).
Game
A competitive activity or sport in which players contend with each other according to a set of rules
The game of basketball.
The game of gin rummy.
Sport
Fun; amusement
Balanced on the curb just for the sport of it.
Game
A single instance of such an activity
We lost the first game.
Sport
Mockery; jest
He made sport of his own looks.
Game
Games An organized athletic program or contest
Track-and-field games.
Took part in the winter games.
Sport
An object of mockery, jest, or play
Treated our interests as sport.
Game
A period of competition or challenge
It was too late in the game to change the schedule of the project.
Sport
A joking mood or attitude
She made the remark in sport.
Game
The total number of points required to win a game
One hundred points is game in bridge.
Sport
One known for the manner of one's acceptance of rules, especially of a game, or of a difficult situation
A poor sport.
Game
The score accumulated at any given time in a game
The game is now 14 to 12.
Sport
(Informal) A fair-minded person, especially one who accepts teasing or difficult situations well
Be a sport and show me where you caught those fish.
Game
The equipment needed for playing certain games
Packed the children's games in the car.
Sport
(Informal) A pleasant companion
Was a real sport during the trip.
Game
A particular style or manner of playing a game
Improved my tennis game with practice.
Sport
A person who lives a jolly, extravagant life.
Game
An active interest or pursuit, especially one involving competitive engagement or adherence to rules
"the way the system operates, the access game, the turf game, the image game" (Hedrick Smith).
Sport
A gambler at sporting events.
Game
A business or occupation; a line
The insurance game.
Sport
(Biology) An organism or a part of an organism that shows a marked change from the parent type, typically as a result of mutation.
Game
An illegal activity; a racket.
Sport
(Obsolete) Amorous dalliance; lovemaking.
Game
Evasive, trifling, or manipulative behavior
Wanted a straight answer, not more of their tiresome games.
Sport
To play or frolic
Children sporting in the waves.
Game
A calculated strategy or approach; a scheme
I saw through their game from the very beginning.
Sport
To joke or trifle
"Lear ... in a storm, half mad, sported with by the gods" (Cynthia Ozick).
Game
(Mathematics) A model of a competitive situation that identifies interested parties and stipulates rules governing all aspects of the competition, used in game theory to determine the optimal course of action for an interested party.
Sport
To wear or have on one's body, especially prominently or ostentatiously
Sports diamond earrings.
Sports a tattoo.
Game
Wild animals hunted for food or sport.
Sport
To have as a prominent feature
A car sporting a new paint job.
Game
The flesh of these animals, eaten as food.
Sport
Of, relating to, or appropriate for sports
Sport fishing.
Sports equipment.
Game
An object of attack, ridicule, or pursuit
The press considered the candidate's indiscretions to be game.
Sport
Designed or appropriate for outdoor or informal wear
A sport shirt.
Game
Mockery; sport
The older children teased and made game of the newcomer.
Sport
(countable) Any activity that uses physical exertion or skills competitively under a set of rules that is not based on aesthetics.
Game
To manipulate dishonestly for personal gain; rig
Executives who gamed the system to get huge payoffs.
Sport
(countable) A person who exhibits either good or bad sportsmanship.
Jen may have won, but she was sure a poor sport; she laughed at the loser.
The loser was a good sport, and congratulated Jen on her performance.
Game
To play for stakes; gamble.
Sport
(countable) Somebody who behaves or reacts in an admirably good-natured manner, e.g. to being teased or to losing a game; a good sport.
You're such a sport! You never get upset when we tease you.
Game
To play a role-playing or computer game.
Sport
(obsolete) That which diverts, and makes mirth; pastime; amusement.
Game
Plucky and unyielding in spirit; resolute
She put up a game fight against her detractors.
Sport
(obsolete) Mockery, making fun; derision.
Game
Ready and willing
Are you game for a swim?.
Sport
(countable) A toy; a plaything; an object of mockery.
Game
Crippled; lame
A game leg.
Sport
(uncountable) Gaming for money as in racing, hunting, fishing.
Game
A playful or competitive activity.
Sport
A plant or an animal, or part of a plant or animal, which has some peculiarity not usually seen in the species; an abnormal variety or growth. The term encompasses both mutants and organisms with non-genetic developmental abnormalities such as birth defects.
Game
A playful activity that may be unstructured; an amusement or pastime.
Being a child is all fun and games.
Sport
A sportsman; a gambler.
Game
(countable) An activity described by a set of rules, especially for the purpose of entertainment, often competitive or having an explicit goal.
Games in the classroom can make learning fun.
Sport
One who consorts with disreputable people, including prostitutes.
Game
A school subject during which sports are practised.
Sport
An amorous dalliance.
Game
(countable) A particular instance of playing a game.
Sally won the game.
They can turn the game around in the second half.
Sport
A friend or acquaintance (chiefly used when speaking to the friend in question)
Game
That which is gained, such as the stake in a game.
Sport
(obsolete) Play; idle jingle.
Game
The number of points necessary to win a game.
In short whist, five points are game.
Sport
(intransitive) To amuse oneself, to play.
Children sporting on the green
Game
(card games) In some games, a point awarded to the player whose cards add up to the largest sum.
Sport
(intransitive) To mock or tease, treat lightly, toy with.
Jen sports with Bill's emotions.
Game
(countable) The equipment that enables such activity, particularly as packaged under a title.
Some of the games in the closet we have on the computer as well.
Sport
(transitive) To display; to have as a notable feature.
Jen's sporting a new pair of shoes;
He was sporting a new wound from the combat
Game
One's manner, style, or performance in playing a game.
Study can help your game of chess.
Hit the gym if you want to toughen up your game.
Sport
(reflexive) To divert; to amuse; to make merry.
Game
Senseid|en|video game}} (countable) {{ellipsis of video game
Sport
(transitive) To represent by any kind of play.
Game
Lovemaking, flirtation.
Sport
To practise the diversions of the field or the turf; to be given to betting, as upon races.
Game
(slang) Prostitution. (Now chiefly in on the game.)
Sport
To assume suddenly a new and different character from the rest of the plant or from the type of the species; said of a bud, shoot, plant, or animal.
Game
A field of gainful activity, as an industry or profession.
When it comes to making sales, John is the best in the game.
He's in the securities game somehow.
Sport
(transitive) To close (a door).
Game
Something that resembles a game with rules, despite not being designed.
In the game of life, you may find yourself playing the waiting game far too often.
Sport
That which diverts, and makes mirth; pastime; amusement.
It is as sport to a fool to do mischief.
Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight.
Think it but a minute spent in sport.
Game
An exercise simulating warfare, whether computerized or involving human participants.
Sport
Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth; derision.
Then make sport at me; then let me be your jest.
Game
(uncountable) wild animals hunted for food.
The forest has plenty of game.
Sport
That with which one plays, or which is driven about in play; a toy; a plaything; an object of mockery.
Flitting leaves, the sport of every wind.
Never does man appear to greater disadvantage than when he is the sport of his own ungoverned passions.
Game
The ability to seduce someone, usually by strategy.
He didn't get anywhere with her because he had no game.
Sport
Play; idle jingle.
An author who should introduce such a sport of words upon our stage would meet with small applause.
Game
Mastery; the ability to excel at something.
Sport
Diversion of the field, as fowling, hunting, fishing, racing, games, and the like, esp. when money is staked.
Game
(countable) A questionable or unethical practice in pursuit of a goal.
You want to borrow my credit card for a week? What's your game?
Sport
A plant or an animal, or part of a plant or animal, which has some peculiarity not usually seen in the species; an abnormal variety or growth. See Sporting plant, under Sporting.
Game
(colloquial) Willing and able to participate.
Sport
A sportsman; a gambler.
Game
(of an animal) That shows a tendency to continue to fight against another animal, despite being wounded, often severely.
Sport
To play; to frolic; to wanton.
[Fish], sporting with quick glance,Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold.
Game
Persistent, especially in senses similar to the above.
Sport
To practice the diversions of the field or the turf; to be given to betting, as upon races.
Game
Injured, lame (of a limb).
Sport
To trifle.
Game
(intransitive) To gamble.
Sport
To divert; to amuse; to make merry; - used with the reciprocal pronoun.
Against whom do ye sport yourselves?
Game
(intransitive) To play card games, board games, or video games.
Sport
To represent by any kind of play.
Now sporting on thy lyre the loves of youth.
Game
(transitive) To exploit loopholes in a system or bureaucracy in a way which defeats or nullifies the spirit of the rules in effect, usually to obtain a result which otherwise would be unobtainable.
We'll bury them in paperwork, and game the system.
Sport
To exhibit, or bring out, in public; to use or wear; as, to sport a new equipage.
Game
To perform premeditated seduction strategy.
Sport
To give utterance to in a sportive manner; to throw out in an easy and copious manner; - with off; as, to sport off epigrams.
Game
Crooked; lame; as, a game leg.
Sport
An active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition
Game
Having a resolute, unyielding spirit, like the gamecock; ready to fight to the last; plucky.
I was game . . . .I felt that I could have fought even to the death.
Sport
The occupation of athletes who compete for pay
Game
Of or pertaining to such animals as are hunted for game, or to the act or practice of hunting.
Sport
Someone who engages in sports
Game
Sport of any kind; jest, frolic.
We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game.
Sport
(biology) an organism that has characteristics resulting from chromosomal alteration
Game
A contest, physical or mental, according to certain rules, for amusement, recreation, or for winning a stake; as, a game of chance; games of skill; field games, etc.
But war's a game, which, were their subject wise,Kings would not play at.
Sport
(Maine colloquial) temporary summer resident of inland Maine
Game
The use or practice of such a game; a single match at play; a single contest; as, a game at cards.
Talk the game o'er between the deal.
Sport
Verbal wit (often at another's expense but not to be taken seriously);
He became a figure of fun
Game
That which is gained, as the stake in a game; also, the number of points necessary to be scored in order to win a game; as, in short whist five points are game.
Sport
Wear or display in an ostentatious or proud manner;
She was sporting a new hat
Game
In some games, a point credited on the score to the player whose cards counts up the highest.
Sport
Play boisterously;
The children frolicked in the garden
The gamboling lambs in the meadows
The toddlers romped in the playroom
Game
A scheme or art employed in the pursuit of an object or purpose; method of procedure; projected line of operations; plan; project.
Your murderous game is nearly up.
It was obviously Lord Macaulay's game to blacken the greatest literary champion of the cause he had set himself to attack.
Sport
A physical activity that involves competition.
Soccer is a popular sport worldwide.
Game
Animals pursued and taken by sportsmen; wild meats designed for, or served at, table.
Those species of animals . . . distinguished from the rest by the well-known appellation of game.
Sport
An activity requiring skill or physical prowess.
Ice skating is a beautiful sport to watch.
Game
To rejoice; to be pleased; - often used, in Old English, impersonally with dative.
God loved he best with all his whole hearteAt alle times, though him gamed or smarte.
Sport
Someone who behaves in a good or specified way in response to teasing, defeat, etc.
She was a good sport about losing the bet.
Game
To play at any sport or diversion.
Sport
To display or wear, especially in a conspicuous or proud manner.
He likes to sport a bright red tie.
Game
To play for a stake or prize; to use cards, dice, billiards, or other instruments, according to certain rules, with a view to win money or some other thing waged upon the issue of the contest; to gamble.
Game
A single play of a game;
The game lasted 2 hours
Game
A contest with rules to determine a winner;
You need four people to play this game
Game
An amusement or pastime;
They played word games
He thought of his painting as a game that filled his empty time
His life was all fun and games
Game
Animal hunted for food or sport
Game
The game equipment needed to play a game;
The child received several games for his birthday
Game
Your occupation or line of work;
He's in the plumbing game
She's in show biz
Game
(games) the score at a particular point or the score needed to win;
The game is 6 all
He is serving for the game
Game
The flesh of wild animals that is used for food
Game
A secret scheme to do something (especially something underhand or illegal);
They concocted a plot to discredit the governor
I saw through his little game from the start
Game
Frivolous or trifling behavior;
For actors, memorizing lines is no game
For him, life is all fun and games
Game
Place a bet on;
Which horse are you backing?
I'm betting on the new horse
Game
Disabled in the feet or legs;
A crippled soldier
A game leg
Game
Willing to face danger
Game
A structured activity often played for fun.
We played a game of chess.
Game
A particular instance or session of a recreational activity.
We had a great game last night.
FAQs
Are all sports games?
While all sports can be viewed as games due to their structured nature, not all games qualify as sports.
Can video games be considered sports?
Some video games, known as esports, are considered sports due to their competitive nature and requirement of skill.
What is a game?
A game is a structured form of play, often undertaken for entertainment.
What defines a sport?
A sport is an organized, competitive activity requiring skill and physical exertion.
Can a game be non-competitive?
Yes, games can be both competitive and non-competitive.
What are some examples of sports?
Soccer, basketball, and tennis are examples of sports.
Can games be played alone?
Yes, many games like solitaire or single-player video games can be played alone.
Are sports always played in teams?
No, sports can be individual (like tennis) or team-based (like soccer).
Is every physical game a sport?
Not necessarily. While many physical games can be sports, the competitive nature and structure define sports.
How are games and sports similar?
Both are structured activities with objectives that can provide entertainment and social connection.
What are some examples of games?
Chess, Monopoly, and Scrabble are examples of games.
Are there any risks involved in playing games?
Some games, especially if they are physical or involve electronic screens, can have associated risks.
Can a game become a sport?
Yes, if a game evolves to have organized competitions and requires skill, it can be considered a sport.
Can you name a game that has become a recognized sport?
Yes, esports or competitive video gaming has become a recognized sport.
What's the difference between a sportsperson and a gamer?
A sportsperson participates in traditional sports, while a gamer primarily engages in video games.
Are sports more physically demanding than games?
Generally, sports require more physical exertion than games, but it varies.
Can games be educational?
Absolutely, many games are designed to be educational and can teach various skills.
Are sports beneficial for health?
Yes, engaging in sports can improve physical fitness, mental well-being, and overall health.
Do all games have rules?
Most games have a set of rules, but they can be flexible based on player preferences.
Why are rules important in sports?
Rules ensure fairness, safety, and a structured competitive environment in sports.
About Author
Written by
Janet WhiteJanet White has been an esteemed writer and blogger for Difference Wiki. Holding a Master's degree in Science and Medical Journalism from the prestigious Boston University, she has consistently demonstrated her expertise and passion for her field. When she's not immersed in her work, Janet relishes her time exercising, delving into a good book, and cherishing moments with friends and family.
Edited by
Harlon MossHarlon is a seasoned quality moderator and accomplished content writer for Difference Wiki. An alumnus of the prestigious University of California, he earned his degree in Computer Science. Leveraging his academic background, Harlon brings a meticulous and informed perspective to his work, ensuring content accuracy and excellence.
