Word.ws English Dictionary

jai alai

/ˈhaɪlaɪ/

jai alai noun: a Basque ball game in which the players propel the ball using a long basket attached to the wrist.

jai alai: a Basque ball game in which the players propel the ball using a long basket attached to the wrist
Image: Jesus Abizanda from Barbastro, Huesca, Spain, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

jai alai

  1. a Basque ball game in which the players propel the ball using a long basket attached to the wrist

Origin of jai alai

From Spanish, from Basque jai (“festival”) + alai (“merry”), coined by 19th century writer Serafín Baroja in order to replace the non-native name pilota. However, although jai alai is composed of Basque words, it is not the name actually used in Basque.

Words that rhyme with jai alai

Questions about jai alai

What does jai alai mean?
Jai alai means a Basque ball game in which the players propel the ball using a long basket attached to the wrist.
What part of speech is jai alai?
Jai alai is a noun.
How do you pronounce jai alai?
Jai alai is pronounced /ˈhaɪlaɪ/.

Words near jai alai in the dictionary

  1. Jahwism
  2. Jahwist
  3. Jahwistic
  4. Jahwists
  5. Jai
  6. jai alai
  7. Jai Hind
  8. Jai Shri Ram
  9. Jai Siya Ram
  10. jai-alai
  11. Jaichand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jai alai (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-jai alai.wav.

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