Etymology

tennis

ten·nis
T1E1N1N1I1S1

Today it means: A sport played by two players (or four in doubles), who alternately strike the ball over a net using racquets. Full definition →

Middle English tennys /teneys /tenis ← Old French tenir, ~nez ← Early Medieval Latin tenīre
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ten-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*tn̥eh₁yéti
  3. Proto-Italic*tenēō
  4. Latinteneō
  5. Early Medieval Latintenīre
  6. Old Frenchtenir, ~nez
  7. Middle Englishtennys /teneys /tenis
  8. English todaytennis

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.