jeu de paume

Borrowed from French jeu de paume (“game of the palm”).

jeu de paume (uncountable)

1. A precursor of lawn tennis, originally played by hitting the ball with the palm of the hand instead of with a racquet.
   • 1951, Alexander Hopkins McDonnald, The Encyclopedia Americana - Volume 3, page 95:

     Although court tennis was at first played by hand (jeu de paume), the form of the game and the shape of the court were developed during the 12th and 13th centuries to a point differing little from the modern game.

   • 1983, Journal of Basque Studies - Volume 4, Issue 2, page 82:

     Clerici reports on two types of jeu de paume that were associated with the Church during the Middle Ages.

   • 2003, John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice:

     At Amboise on the eve of Palm Sunday, 1498, while on his way to watch the jeu de paume being played in the castle ditch, he struck his head on a low lintel.

   • 2003, John Derbyshire, Prime Obsession:

     Hardy's games were cricket, about which he was passionate, and real tennis (a.k.a. court tennis or jeu de paume), a more difficult, more intellectually challenging game than ordinary tennis.

   • 2008, Corry Cropper, Playing at Monarchy: Sport As Metaphor in Nineteenth-century France:

     For centuries le jeu de paume (known as “real tennis” in Britain), a precursor to our modern-day tennis, was the exclusive cultural and social property of France's nobility.

   • 2012, Fodor's France 2012:

     Tuileries, on the Rue de Rivoli side, was once used for jeu de paume (or “palm game,” a forerunner of tennis).

2. The type of court where this game was played.
   • 1988, Robert Cohen, Theatre, page 206:

     A jeu de paume court with game in progress.

   • 1998, Heiner Gillmeister, Tennis:Cultural History, page xi:

     The more superficial beholder of the book's cover (a magnificent piece of artistry by the Venetian painter Gabriel Bella) will have failed to notice, on its continuation overleaf, the employee of an ancient jeu de paume who, having scaled the slanting roof of the gallery, is busily retrieving from the dusty recesses of the window-sill the stray tennis balls from below.

   • 2001, Philip Tomlinson, French "classical" Theatre Today: Teaching, Research, Performance:

     The Hôtel Guénégaud Auditorium according to the Theatre's Account Books Jan Clarke Like most French theatres of the time, the Hôtel Guénégaud began life as a jeu de paume or tennis court.

   • 2009, David Burke, Writers in Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light:

     In December 1643, a new troupe called the Illustre Théâtre moved into the jeu de paume of Les Métayers at No. 12 rue Mazarine (then Rue des Fossés de Nesle), where a plaque on the present-day building notes its stay.

   • 2010, Christie McDonald, Susan Suleiman, French Global: A New Approach to Literary History, page 82:

     Despite a monopoly to stage theatrical performances granted to the Hôtel de Bourgogne troupe, the actor Montdory opened the Théâtre du Marais in 1634 in a jeu de paume, the ancestor of the indoor tennis court.

   • 2014, Pannill Camp, The First Frame, page vii:

     Armed training exercises in a jeu de paume (1760–70).

Literally, “palm game”.

• IPA^(key): /ʒø d(ə) pom/

jeu de paume m (uncountable)

1. jeu de paume