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tennis

noun · verb

Simple meaning

a game where players hit a ball over a net with rackets

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

tehnuhs

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtɛnəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. sports

    A game played with rackets by two or four players who hit a ball back and forth over a net that divides the court

  2. sports

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

verb

  1. transitive

    To drive backward and forward like a tennis ball.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A game played with rackets by two or four players who hit a ball back and forth over a net that divides the court

Used this way, tennis is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Law/legal
  • Government/politics
  • Academic writing
  • Sports

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use tennis

  • “We like to play tennis together on Saturday mornings.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Game / sport

tennis courttennis balltennis playertennis club

Match

tennis match

Other combinations

table tennistennis shoeslawn tennis

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • tennis campnounCompound term

    A camp where tennis is taught.

  • tennis clubnounCompound term

    A club of people to play tennis.

  • tennis coachnounCompound term

    A coach of tennis players.

  • tennis courtnounCompound term

    The court on which tennis is played.

  • tennis elbownounCompound term

    Painful inflammation of the tendon at the outer border of the elbow resulting from overuse of lower arm muscles (as in twisting of the hand).

  • tennis lessonnounCompound term

    A lesson in playing tennis.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: game played with rackets by two

lawn tennis

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.