[f. TENNIS sb. + BALL sb.1 4.] The small ball used in tennis or lawn-tennis.
c. 1450. Brut, ccxliv. 374. Yn scorne & despite he [the Dauphin] sent to hym [King Henry V] a tonne fulle of teneys-ballis, be-cause he schulde haue sumwhat to play with-alle.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. 60. As if God did to make himself pastime to tosse men like tennise balles.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., I. ii. 258.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, II. v. Such cruel bangs … as if I had been pelted with tennis-balls.
1805. Scott, Last Minstr., II. xxxi. Like tennis-ball by raquet tossed.
attrib. 1786. Abercrombie, Arr., in Gard. Assist., p. vii. Tennis-ball cabbage lettuce.
b. fig.; esp. a thing or person that is tossed or bandied about like a tennis-ball.
1589. Warner, Alb. Eng., VI. xxx. 151 Vulcan, Venus,… Daphne turnd to Tree … tennis balles to euery tongue of euery Deitee.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit. (1637), 570. The very tennisse-ball, in some sort, of fortune.
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, II. App. lxxxviii. A cluster of them makes not half a Moon, What should such tennis-balls do in the skie?
1890. Dakyns, Xenophon, I. p. xciv. We find this great Athenian captain playing the ignoble part of tennis-ball to rival Spartan harmosts.
