A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 2001 (DOST Vol. X).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Tennis(e, Tinnis(e, n. Also: tennies, -ice, tenes, tinne(i)s, -isse, -ice, tynneiss, tunneise. [Late ME and e.m.E. tenetz (c1400), teneys (Prompt. Parv.), tennys (1463), tenyce (a1470), tenes (1516), tennise (1601).] The game of real tennis.(a) 1598 James VI Basil. Doron 189/18.
Playing at the caitche or tennise, archery, palle maille & suche like other faire & pleasant field games 1674 Cunningham Diary 41.
Lost at tennies with Kilbirnie, £1 13 s. 6 d. 1675 Cunningham Diary 51.
Spent at the tennice that day, £2 9 s. 1679 Anal. Scot. II 62.
I wish you would practice tenes much … You will come to learn to play like a gentleman(b) 1618 Mar & Kellie MSS Suppl. 83.
As for the tinnis, I did bargan with ane maister to lerne them 1654 Sc. Hist. Rev. XXXI. 106.
Being now forbidden the tinnisse, though they never use it but soberly 1657 Misc. Hist. Soc. VII 26.
Played at the tinnice with Blackbarronie
b. attrib. With ball, only fig. or in fig. context, and court.(1) 1604-9 Grahame Anat. Hum. 5b.
How infamous shall thy name be amongst the commons … like a tennice ball, tossed from mouth to mouth 1640 Lithgow Poet. Remains 163.
Man … tost to and fro, Like tunneise balls 1657 Balfour Ann. I 395.
The king was tossed like a tinnes ball betuix the preceisse ministers and the treacherous papists 1691 Lauder Jrnl. 307.
The lubricity of this world … which … playes with men as so many tinnise-ballsfig. 1685 Lauder Observes 194.
Argile … had been all his life the ludibrium and tennis ball of fortune(2) 1621 Maxwell Mem. 331.
The prince's tinnis court 1630 Soc. Ant. XXX 57.
For … mending … his majesters said palices … Togidder with the tinneis courtis thairof 1632 Stirling's Royal Lett. ii 607.
Tynneiss a1646 Wedderburn Voc. 11.
Sphaeristerium, the tinnice-court or catchpel 1677 Edinb. B. Rec. X 325.
John Nash roap dancer craving libertie … for erecting ane stage within the tinnes court … and to put up volting roaps therin 1681 Edinb. B. Rec. XI 8.
To make the two tinnes courts in [= into] ane flesh mercatt … and incaice the walls of the saids two tinnes courts be to laigh for the uses forsaid then to raise the same
