The article examines lexico-semantic and word-formation changes in Ukrainian sports terminology based on the material of the 11-volume and 20-volume academic explanatory dictionaries (SUM-11 and SUM-20). It is noted that the active renewal of the lexical system of the Ukrainian language is fully reflected in the sports terminological system, whose development is driven by the dynamics of the sports sphere, globalization processes, and the growing role of the English language. The study considers the views of Ukrainian scholars on the sources of enrichment of sports vocabulary and the issue of excessive foreign borrowing. A comparative analysis of the SUM-11 and SUM-20 entries shows a significant expansion of the sports subsystem of modern Ukrainian: the number of terms in the new dictionary has nearly doubled. It is revealed that, as before, the core consists of nouns denoting various sports, competition participants, equipment, and game actions, with borrowed – primarily English – vocabulary dominating (arm-wrestling, bodybuilding, windsurfing, parkour, darts, etc.). At the same time, there has been noticeable activation in the formation of native Ukrainian compound names built from both inherited and mixed morphemes (avtosport ‘autosport’, velodystantsiia ‘cycling distance’, hirs`kolyzhnyk ‘skier’, napivvazhkyi ‘light-heavyweight’, vosmyborstvo ‘octathlon’, and others). The word-formation nests of new terms have also expanded (veikbord – veikboarding – veikbordyst; vindserf – vindserfing – vindserfinhist). Special attention is given to the emergence of a large number of names for female athletes, absent or incompletely represented in SUM-11. The most productive formants are the suffixes -k(a), -yts(ia). A noticeable trend is the displacement of certain Russified forms and the introduction of standard Ukrainian equivalents, as well as the appearance of variant names. A comprehensive analysis of all recorded lexemes selected using specialized tools has made it possible to see a coherent picture of the development of sports terminology over more than fifty years. The findings demonstrate the intensive development and structural complication of modern sports terminology, the significant influence of English, the activation of word-formation processes, and the aspiration to standardize the domain-specific vocabulary in accordance with contemporary linguistic norms.