tennis

From Middle English tennys, teneys, tenis, from Old French tenez (second-person plural imperative of tenir (“to hold”)).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛnɪs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnɪs
• Homophone: tenness
• Hyphenation: ten‧nis

tennis (usually uncountable, plural tennises)

2. (sports) A sport played by two players (or four in doubles), who alternately strike the ball over a net using racquets.
   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court:

     “Anthea hasn't a notion in her head but to vamp a lot of silly mugwumps. She's set her heart on that tennis bloke […] whom the papers are making such a fuss about.”

3. (dated) A match in this sport.
   • 1918, Violet Hunt, The Last Ditch, page 95:

     We go about to parties in the daytime as usual, teas and tennises […]

4. (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.
   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     tennis-balls

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XI, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     His easy bow, his good stories, his style of dancing and playing tennis, […] were familiar to all London.

tennis (third-person singular simple present tennises, present participle tennising, simple past and past participle tennised)

1. (intransitive, dated) To play tennis.
2. (transitive) To drive backward and forward like a tennis ball.
   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

     they shall have Intelligence or Espial upon the Enemy, will so drive him from one side to another, and tennis him amongst them

• table tennis or ping pong

• innest, nestin, sennit, sinnet, tensin

• tenis

Borrowed from English tennis.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈtɛn.nis]

tennis m (uncountable)

1. tennis

• “tennis”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “tennis”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “tennis” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.

From English tennis.

tennis c (definite singular tennissen or tennisen)

1. (uncountable, sports) tennis

• tennisbane
• tennisbold
• tennisketsjer

• “tennis” in Den Danske Ordbog

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛ.nɪs/, /ˈtɛ.nəs/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ten‧nis
• Rhymes: -ɛnɪs

Borrowed from English tennis.

tennis n (uncountable)

1. tennis (sport)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

tennis

1. inflection of tennissen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

• intens

From German Tennis.

tennis (genitive tennise, partitive tennist)

1. tennis

From English tennis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtenːis/, [ˈt̪e̞nːis̠]
• Rhymes: -enːis
• Syllabification^(key): ten‧nis
• Hyphenation^(key): ten‧nis

tennis

1. tennis

• verkkopallo (dated)

• “tennis”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 3 July 2023

Borrowed from English tennis.

• IPA^(key): /tɛ.nis/ ~ /te.nis/

• Audio:

  (file)

tennis m (plural tennis)

1. (usually uncountable, sports) tennis
2. (countable, Europe, dated) sneaker

• tennis de table

• → Persian: تنیس (tenis)

• “tennis”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtʰɛnːɪs/
• Rhymes: -ɛnːɪs

tennis m (genitive singular tennis or tenniss, no plural)

1. tennis

• tennisolnbogi
• tennisspaði

• steinn

Borrowed from English tennis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛn.nis/
• Rhymes: -ɛnnis
• Hyphenation: tèn‧nis

tennis m (invariable)

1. tennis

• tennistavolo
• tennista
• tennistico

• tennis in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

tennis m (definite singular tennisen) (uncountable)

1. (sports) tennis

• bordtennis
• tennisbane
• tennisspiller

tennis m (definite singular tennisen) (uncountable)

1. (sports) tennis

• bordtennis
• tennisbane

• Audio:

  (file)

tennis c

1. (uncountable, sports) tennis

• tennis in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• tennis in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• tennis in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

• nitens, sinnet

From English tennis.

tennis m or f (uncountable)

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “tennis”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies