tennis

The word “tennis” means a sport in which two or four players hit a ball back and forth over a net using racquets. In plain terms, the racquet-and-net sport played on a court, either singles or doubles.

“Tennis” is pronounced TEH-nihs (/ˈtɛnɪs/ in IPA).

Here is “tennis” used in a sentence: “They played tennis every Saturday morning at the local club.”

“Tennis” is a noun.

The word “tennis” comes from Old French. From Old French tenez ("hold!" or "take this!"), reportedly called out by the server before hitting the ball in an earlier version of the game.

“Tennis” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

Tennis is played on a large court, where players hit a ball over a net with racquets. Table tennis, or ping-pong, is played on a table using small paddles and a lightweight hollow ball. They are separate sports with different equipment and rules.

You say "play tennis," with no article. Like most sports, tennis takes no "the" — you "play tennis," "watch tennis," and go to a "tennis match."

In tennis, "singles" is a match between two individual players, one on each side of the net, while "doubles" is played by two pairs, with two players on each side. This reflects the game's two-player and four-player forms.

Common collocations include "tennis court," "tennis racquet," "tennis ball," "tennis match," and "tennis player." "Tennis" is also used before other nouns, as in "tennis shoes" and "tennis elbow."