serve
noun/sɜːv/
/sɜːrv/
- (in tennis, etc.) the action of serving the ball to your opponent
- He has not lost his serve (= lost a game in which it was his turn to serve) in three matches.
Word OriginMiddle English: from Old French servir, from Latin servire, from servus ‘slave’.Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
Check pronunciation:
serve