tennis pro
- noun
- /ˈtɛnɪs proʊ/
- Informal
- He's a local tennis pro here.
- a former tennis pro
- a tennis pro at the club
I'm going to say I'm going to agree with Buvi and say I think I could be a tennis pro in one game, OK, than a darts player in a single leg.
- I'm going to say I'm going to agree with Buvi and say I think I could be a tennis pro in one game, OK, than a darts player in a single leg.
Examples
-
On the first court, the tennis pro enthusiastically measured out a lesson to a middle-aged woman who behaved as if she had read books on tennis etiquette.
Fiction book (1994) -
Lazenby was recently divorced from his second wife, former tennis pro Pam Shriver, with whom he has three children.
Blog text (22) -
l used to be a tennis pro.
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"Apparently she fell for a tennis pro." "It happens."
Fiction book (1995) -
My sister is a musician, my brother is a tennis pro, and I am a scientist.
Academic text (1993) -
I wanna be a tennis pro like Ivan.
-
Well, he's the tennis pro at the club.
-
Three months ago, my tennis pro thought I could get tennis scholarships anywhere in the country.
Fiction book (1999) -
Dr. O'Shaughnessy is a former tennis pro and a professor emeritus of psychology at San Diego State University.
Blog text (24) -
He is a skilled tennis pro who competes in national tournaments.
Synonyms
A person who plays tennis as a sport or for a living
A person who teaches and trains people to play tennis
A person who plays tennis and earns money from it
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositionally derived from 'tennis' (the sport) + 'pro' (professional person), yielding a professional who plays or teaches tennis. This noun + noun specialist pattern is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The term tennis pro comes from a simple idea: tennis plus pro, short for 'professional', meaning someone who plays or teaches tennis for pay. So tennis pro today means 'a professional tennis player or a person who teaches tennis'.