[f. as prec. + PLAY sb.]
1. The game of TENNIS; playing at tennis.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 68/1. Chace of tenys pley, or oþyr lyke, sistencia.
1530. Palsgr., 280/1. Tennysplay, jeu de la paulme.
1594. Nashe, Christ’s T., To Rdr. Prouided it bee not a Tennice-play of Pots and Cups, like the Centaurs feast.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxv. (1839), 249. He that useth able seconds at tennis play, placed in their proper stations.
† 2. = TENNIS-COURT. Obs.
1507–8. Court of Frank-pledge, Oxford. Four men presented for keeping tenysplayes, an illegal sport.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 1223/1. In Wisbich was a garden, a tennise plaie, & a bowling allie walled about with bricke.
Comb. 1530. in Vicary’s Anat. (1888), App. ii. 101. Item, for Anthony Annesley, tenesplay-keper vj s viij d.
