serve
29
3.0
- noun
- /sɜrv/
- Low-skilled students improved more on the serve skills test, self-efficacy, and the percentage of legal sets and successful passes.
- return a serve
- a good serve
- a short serve
Examples
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Max, my serve will send you to the showers early.
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Finally, a successful serve, groundstroke, and a successful volley earned one point each.
Academic text (1995) -
No matter what she put on her serve, it came back low and hard.
Fiction book (2001) -
And, uh, you can see their serve looks very good, hopefully.
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Seriously, do you actually think that you can return my serve?
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And so I go back to the match and I serve a very fast serve and it's an ace.
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Rather like letting your partner down in tennis by not holding your serve.
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The largest difference was for the serve, with the low-skilled group having only 34% as many legal serves.
Academic text (2004) -
All returns and forehand and backhand serves of gameplay were recorded during tournament play.
Academic text (1993) -
She started the match with a powerful serve that surprised her opponent.
Synonyms
2
3.0
The act of putting the ball into play at the start of a point
Idioms
- Informal
35
7.3
A punishment that someone deserves because of their own wrong actions
4
8.2
To try to please two people or groups who want different things and fail to please either
Compounds
How Effective
Surface Forms
Etymology
The noun serve comes from the same old root serv-, from servire meaning 'to serve' or 'do duty'. A serve is the 'giving' action that begins a point, which is why the serve starts play.