Meanings
nounsoft tennis (uncountable)
- uncountablehobbiesA variant of tennis, developed in Japan, differing in the tennis ball used, from regular tennis (lawn tennis), having a softer rubber ball.
Origin
Phono-semantic matching of Japanese ソフトテニス (sofuto tenisu), itself a wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from soft + tenis.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Italian soft tennis
- soft tennisvariant of tennis
Japanese ソフトテニス, ソフテニ
- ソフトテニス (sofutotenisu)variant of tennis
- ソフテニ (sofuteni)variant of tennis
- 軟式テニス (nanshiki tenisu)variant of tennis
- 軟式庭球 (nanshiki teikyū)variant of tennis
Korean 소프트 테니스, 연식정구
- 소프트 테니스 (sopeuteu teniseu)variant of tennis
- 연식정구 (yeonsikjeonggu)variant of tennis
Cite this entry
APA
soft tennis. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/soft%20tennis
MLA
“soft tennis.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/soft%20tennis. Accessed November 4, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “soft tennis,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/soft%20tennis.
Source: soft tennis on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.