tennis
/ˈtɛnɪs/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms tennises tennising tennised
- noun (sports) A sport played by two players (or four in doubles), who alternately strike the ball over a net using racquets.
- noun (dated) A match in this sport.
- noun (obsolete) An earlier game in which a ball is driven to and fro, or kept in motion by striking it with a racquet or with the open hand.
- verb (intransitive, dated) To play tennis.
- verb (transitive) To drive backward and forward like a tennis ball.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Finney County, Kansas, United States.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English tennys, teneys, tenis, from Old French tenez (second-person plural imperative of tenir (“to hold”)).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A play in which a ball is driven to and fro, or kept in motion by striking it with a racket or with the open hand. Shak.
- verb To drive backward and forward, as a ball in playing tennis.
Etymology [OE. tennes, tenies, tenyse; of uncertain origin, perhaps fr. F. tenez hold or take it, fr. tenir to hold (see Tenable).]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “tennis”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details