Sporty comes from sport + -y; sport is a shortening of disport, from Old French desporter ('to amuse oneself'), from Latin dis- + portare ('to carry'). The historical chain includes Old French desporter and Latin portare. The quoted older senses, "to amuse oneself" and "to carry", supply the semantic anchors for sporty. The formation is best read as suffixal, compound, and borrowed: the word sporty carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a adj, "interested in or suited to sport; stylishly athletic". English derivatives include sportiness; related English forms include sport and sportive. The result is a adj whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.