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Glite Dictionary
deck tennis

deck tennis

8.4
A game on a ship deck where players toss a ring over a net
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : tenis de cubierta
  • Well, there's still deck tennis, shuffleboard, bingo.

Examples

  • On sunny days, the passengers enjoy playing deck tennis on the ship's deck.

  • During our voyage, we often played deck tennis whenever the weather was nice.

  • The cruise ship offers various activities, including deck tennis and swimming.

Surface Forms

deck tennis singular
deck tennis plural

Morphology

deck + tennis

The noun combines 'deck' (a ship or platform surface) with 'tennis' (a net-based sport), so the meaning—a tennis-like game played on a ship's deck—is directly derivable from the constituents. This is a straightforward compositional compound with no idiomatic shift, so a B1 learner who knows both words would reasonably infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The phrase deck tennis comes from people playing a simple tennis game on the deck of a ship, where players tossed a 'ring' or ball over a low 'net' on a small court. So, deck tennis now means that small game played on a ship.