athletic
Meanings
- Having to do with athletes.
- Physically active.
- Having a muscular, well developed body, being in shape.
- An attribute of a motion or play which requires fine physical ability.
- Of a level in a Super Mario game: with an emphasis on platforming challenge, often involving precise jumps between floating platforms above a bottomless pit, and having upbeat background music.
- A muscular, large–boned person, in the typology of Ernst Kretschmer.
- A player on the team Oakland Athletics.
- Short for Athletic Club, a Spanish professional club more often known in English as Athletic Bilbao.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂weh₁-der. Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-tromder. Ancient Greek ἆθλον (âthlon) Ancient Greek ᾱ̓θλέω (āthléō) Proto-Hellenic *-tās Ancient Greek -τής (-tḗs) Ancient Greek ἀθλητής (athlētḗs) Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós) Ancient Greek ᾱ̓θλητῐκός (āthlētĭkós)bor. Latin āthlēticuslbor. Middle French athletiquebor. English athletic Borrowed from Middle French athletique and Latin āthlēticus, from Ancient Greek ἀθλητικός (athlētikós, “relating to an athlete”), from ἀθλητής (athlētḗs, “athlete”): equivalent to athlete + -ic. For more, see athlete. The Super Mario sense is effectively a reborrowing of Japanese アスレチック (asurechikku, “obstacle course”), originally borrowed from English athletic; this sense was itself originally a clipping of the genericized wasei eigo trademark フィールドアスレチック (fīrudo asurechikku, “Field Athletic”).