tennis

Syllables: ten·nis/ˈtɛnɪs/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈtenɪs/

tennis noun: a sport played by two players (or four in doubles), who alternately strike the ball over a net using racquets.

Image: Carine06 from UK, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tennis (usually uncountable, plural tennises)

(usually) A sport played by two players (or four in doubles), who alternately strike the ball over a net using racquets.
- “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.”1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court
- One of Naomi Osaka's sponsors has been forced to apologise after depicting the Japanese tennis star, who is half-Haitian, with pale skin in an advertisement.2019 January 23, Justin McCurry, “Naomi Osaka sponsor apologises for ‘whitewashing’ tennis star in ad”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...
(dated, usually) A match in this sport.
- We go about to parties in the daytime as usual, teas and tennises[…]1918, Violet Hunt, The Last Ditch, page 95
(obsolete, usually) 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.
- tennis-balls1599 (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...
- His easy bow, his good stories, his style of dancing and playing tennis, […] were familiar to all London.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...

Verb

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

(dated, intransitive) To play tennis.
(transitive) To drive backward and forward like a tennis ball.
- they shall have Intelligence or Espial upon the Enemy, will so drive him from one side to another, and tennis him amongst them1596 (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 […]...

Proper noun capitalized: Tennis

Tennis

An unincorporated community in Finney County, Kansas, United States.

tennis meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tennis in Hindi

sport played by two or four players with strung racquets: टेनिस ṭenis

tennis in Tamil

sport played by two or four players with strung racquets: வரிப்பந்தாட்டம் varippantāṭṭam, வலைப்பந்து valaippantu

tennis in Marathi

sport played by two or four players with strung racquets: टेनिस ṭenis

tennis in Urdu

sport played by two or four players with strung racquets: ٹینِس ṭenis

More languagesFewer languages

tennis in Bengali: টেনিস ṭeniś
tennis in Telugu: టెన్నిస్ ṭennis
tennis in Malayalam: ടെന്നീസ് ṭennīsŭ
tennis in Kannada: ಟೆನ್ನಿಸ್ ṭennis
tennis in Punjabi: ਖਿੱਦੋ-ਛਿੱਕਾ khiddo-chikkā, ਗੇਂਦ-ਛਿੱਕਾ genda-chikkā
tennis in Gujarati: ટેનિસ ṭenis
tennis in Odia: ଟେନିସ୍, ଟେନ୍ନିସ୍, ଟେନିସିଂ
tennis in Sanskrit: लानम् lānam
tennis in Sinhala: ටෙනිස් ṭenis
tennis in Nepali: टेनिस ṭenis
tennis in Pashto: تېنس tenís, ټېنس ṭenés
tennis in Tagalog: tenis
tennis in Arabic: تَنِس tanis, تِنِس tinis, كُرَةُ المَضْرِب kuratu l-maḍrib
tennis in Malay: tenis
tennis in Indonesian: tenis
tennis in Thai: เทนนิส ten-nít
tennis in Vietnamese: quần vợt, ten-nít
tennis in Myanmar: တင်းနစ် tang:nac

Examples of tennis in a sentence

If the tennis ball bounces on the line then it's in.
The tennis player lobbed the ball, which was a costly mistake.
Jan had little trouble beating John in tennis. He lost five games in a row.

All 40 example sentences with tennis

Forms of tennis

Noun
plural	tennises
Verb
third-person singular present	tennises
present participle	tennising
past participle	tennised
past	tennised

Origin of tennis

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

Phrases with tennis

7 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with tennis

Questions about tennis

What does tennis mean?: Tennis means a sport played by two players (or four in doubles), who alternately strike the ball over a net using racquets.
What is tennis in Hindi?: Tennis in Hindi is टेनिस (ṭenis). See Tennis meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is tennis?: Tennis can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tennis?: Tennis is pronounced /ˈtɛnɪs/ (UK).
What is the plural of tennis?: The plural of tennis is tennises.

Words near tennis in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: tennis (page history and authors); Tennis (page history and authors); tennis (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: 2026-09-02

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

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