Word.ws English Dictionary

hold serve

hold serve verb: to win a game when one is serving.

Verb

hold serve (third-person singular simple present holds serve, present participle holding serve, simple past and past participle held serve)

  1. To win a game when one is serving.
    • This meant Nadal needed to hold serve to force his opponent to earn the win. An unforced error took Rosol to 30-15 and two points away from glory, but a net cord in Nadal's favour and the men were level in the game.2012 June 28, Jamie Jackson, “Wimbledon 2012: Lukas Rosol shocked by miracle win over Rafael Nadal”, in the Guardian

Forms of hold serve

third-person singular presentholds serve
present participleholding serve
past participleheld serve
pastheld serve

Questions about hold serve

What does hold serve mean?
Hold serve means to win a game when one is serving.
What part of speech is hold serve?
Hold serve is a verb.
What is the past tense of hold serve?
The past tense of hold serve is held serve.

Words near hold serve in the dictionary

  1. hold out
  2. hold outs
  3. hold over
  4. hold over someone's head
  5. hold ransom
  6. hold serve
  7. hold short
  8. hold someone's feet to the fire
  9. hold someone's hand
  10. hold space
  11. hold still

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hold serve (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.

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