Word.ws English Dictionary

forehand

/fɔːhænd/US/fɔːɹhænd/

forehand noun: a stroke in which the palm of the hand faces the direction of the stroke.

Noun

forehand (plural forehands)

  1. (racket sports) A stroke in which the palm of the hand faces the direction of the stroke.
    • the devastating speed of her forehand return
    Antonyms:
    backhand
  2. (disc sports) A throw similar to a sidearm throw in baseball, where the disc remains on the throwing-arm side of the body and is led by the middle finger.
    Synonyms:
    flick
  3. All of the part of a horse which is before the rider.
    • […]those horses which are of a chicke Forehand, short necked1618, Michel Baret, An Hipponomie […]
  4. (archaic) The chief or most important part.
    • The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns / The sinew and the forehand of our host1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act 1, scene 3
  5. Superiority; advantage; start; precedence.
    • And, but for ceremony such a wretch,
      Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
      Had the forehand and vantage of a king1599 (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...
  6. The hand towards the front of the board.
    Antonyms:
    backhand

Adjective

forehand (not comparable)

  1. Beforehand; paid in advance.
    • a forehand rent

Verb

forehand (third-person singular simple present forehands, present participle forehanding, simple past and past participle forehanded)

  1. (transitive) To strike with a forehand stroke.

Proper noun capitalized: Forehand

Forehand (plural Forehands)

  1. A surname.

Examples of forehand in a sentence

  • That forehand was long. It landed two feet beyond the baseline.
  • Kyrgios hits a thumping inside-out forehand to Raonic's weaker wing, the backhand.
  • Koulikovskaya is pretty weird (hits a forehand off both sides), but not very effective.

All 10 example sentences with forehand

Synonyms of forehand

Antonyms

Forms of forehand

Noun
pluralforehands
Verb
third-person singular presentforehands
present participleforehanding
past participleforehanded
pastforehanded
Proper noun
pluralForehands

Plural of forehand: forehands

Origin of forehand

From fore- + hand.

Words formed from forehand

Questions about forehand

What does forehand mean?
Forehand means a stroke in which the palm of the hand faces the direction of the stroke.
What part of speech is forehand?
Forehand can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce forehand?
Forehand is pronounced /fɔːhænd/ (UK).
What is the plural of forehand?
The plural of forehand is forehands.

Words near forehand in the dictionary

  1. forehall
  2. forehalls
  3. forehalsen
  4. forehammer
  5. forehammers
  6. forehand
  7. forehanded
  8. forehandedly
  9. forehandedness
  10. forehander
  11. forehanders

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forehand (page history and authors); Forehand (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-forehand.wav.

Cite this entry: “forehand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forehand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.