The words you hear at the courts, grouped by what they describe, with what each one means for how you play. Updated 21 September 2026.
Pickleball has an unusually dense vocabulary for a sport that is 60 years old, partly because it borrowed from tennis, badminton and ping-pong at once, and partly because it grew up on public courts where people name things for fun. This is the whole set, sorted by what the words describe rather than alphabetically, so the terms that belong together sit together. Where a term has a rule behind it, there is a link to the guide that explains the rule.
The court
Kitchen / non-volley zone / NVZ
The 7-foot strip on each side of the net, including its line. You may stand in it and hit balls that have bounced; you may not volley while touching it. The single most important idea in the sport. Full detail in the kitchen rule guide.
Kitchen line / NVZ line
The line 7 feet from the net. It is part of the kitchen for your feet and out of bounds for a serve. Players “take the line” when they move up to stand just behind it.
Baseline
The back line, 22 feet from the net. Serves are hit from behind it.
Centreline
Divides each back court into a left and right service box. Stops at the kitchen line.
Service box / service court
One of the two 10 × 15 foot areas on each side. Serves must land in the box diagonally opposite. See court dimensions.
Even side / odd side
The right-hand service box is the even side and the left is the odd side, because a server stands on the right at even scores and the left at odd.
Transition zone / no man’s land
The area between the baseline and the kitchen line. You pass through it on the way to the line; you do not want to be standing in it when the ball arrives at your feet.
Shots
Dink
A soft shot, usually from the kitchen line, that arcs over the net and lands in the opponents’ kitchen so it cannot be volleyed. The purpose of a dink is to make the other side hit up. Dink rallies are the heart of doubles.
Third-shot drop
The serving team’s third ball, hit softly from the baseline into the opponents’ kitchen so the serving team can move up to the line. Exists because of the two-bounce rule. The hardest basic shot in the game to learn.
Third-shot drive
The alternative: hitting the third ball hard. Works against slow hands, feeds fast ones.
Drive
Any hard, flat groundstroke.
Volley
Hitting the ball before it bounces. Illegal in the kitchen, illegal on the serve and the return.
Punch volley / block volley
A short, firm volley with little backswing (punch) or a soft, absorbing one that drops the ball short (block). What you do at the line when a speed-up comes at you.
Speed-up
A sudden hard ball hit out of a dink rally, usually at a body or a backhand shoulder, to start a fast exchange. In the game on this site, holding the swing until the bar turns yellow is a speed-up.
Reset
A soft shot that takes the pace off a hard ball and drops it back into the kitchen, calming a fast exchange down into a dink rally again. The defensive counterpart of the speed-up.
Lob
A high ball over the opponents at the line. Riskier than in tennis because the court is short; an offensive lob from a dink is a real weapon, a defensive one from the baseline is usually a gift.
Overhead / smash
The put-away on a ball that sits up high. Also what happens to a bad lob.
Erne
A volley hit from outside the sideline next to the net, by running around the kitchen or jumping over its corner, without touching the zone. Named after Erne Perry. Legal, spectacular, and often faulted by people who land on the line.
ATP (around the post)
A ball hit around the outside of the net post, rather than over the net. It does not have to go above net height. Set up by a very wide dink.
Bert
An Erne performed on your partner’s side of the court, by crossing in front of them. Rare and mostly a highlight-reel shot.
Poach
In doubles, crossing over to take a ball that was heading to your partner. Good when planned, infuriating when not.
Put-away
Any shot that ends the point; a winner.
Dead dink
A dink with no purpose, hit to the middle at comfortable height. The kind that gets sped up on.
Shake and bake
A doubles play: one partner drives the third shot, the other crashes the net to put away the pop-up.
Rules and scoring
Two-bounce rule / double-bounce rule
The serve must bounce and the return must bounce before anyone volleys. Same rule, two names; USA Pickleball officially calls it the two-bounce rule since 2018. See the two-bounce rule guide.
Double bounce (fault)
Different thing: the ball bouncing twice on one side before it is hit. A fault against that side.
Fault
Any rule violation that ends the rally: out, net, kitchen violation, two-bounce violation, double bounce, a ball hitting a player, serving out of turn, and so on.
Side-out
The serve passing to the other team. In doubles it happens after the serving team has lost a rally on each of its two servers. See scoring.
Side-out scoring
The traditional system where only the serving side can score.
Rally scoring
The alternative where every rally scores a point for the winner. Used by MLP and by the game on this site.
Server 1 / server 2
The two partners of a serving team in the order they serve during a turn. The third number of a doubles score call.
0–0–2 / zero-zero-start
The opening score call in doubles. The first serving team gets only one server.
Volley serve / drop serve
The two legal serves: hitting the ball out of the air with an underhand motion, or dropping it and hitting it after the bounce. See serving rules.
Let
In tennis, a serve that clips the net and is replayed. Pickleball abolished the let serve in 2021: a net-cord serve that lands in is live. “Let” is still used for a genuine interruption (a ball rolling onto the court), which is replayed.
Foot fault
Touching the baseline or the court on the serve, or touching the kitchen on a volley.
Momentum
The kitchen fault where your volley carries you into the zone afterwards, even after the ball is dead.
Carry / double hit
A carry (the ball resting on the paddle) is a fault. A double hit in one continuous stroke is legal; two deliberate hits are not.
Win by 2
Games go to 11 (or 15 or 21) but must be won by a margin of 2.
Rating (2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0+)
Skill levels used to match players. 2.5 is a beginner who knows the rules; 3.5 has a drop and can sustain a dink rally; 4.5 rarely pops up; 5.0 and above is tournament level. DUPR is the widely used rating system based on match results.
Positions and tactics
Stacking
Both doubles partners lining up on the same side before a serve or return so that each ends up on the side they prefer, typically to keep a left-hander’s forehand in the middle. Legal as long as the correct player serves and receives from the correct box. See singles vs doubles.
Switch
Partners swapping sides during or after a rally, usually called out loud.
Down the middle
The seam between two players at the line. The net is lowest there, and two people have to decide who hits it. “Down the middle solves the riddle.”
Forehand in the middle
The convention that the player whose forehand faces the middle takes the middle ball.
Hands / hands battle
A fast volley exchange at the line after a speed-up. “Good hands” means fast, controlled reactions. The game on this site has a Hands stat that governs exactly this.
Skinny singles
Singles on half the court, crosscourt or straight. A practice format.
Open play / drop-in
Public sessions where anyone can show up and rotate in, usually by putting a paddle in a rack to hold a place in line.
Paddle rack / paddle saddle
The queue system at open play. Four paddles together means the next game’s players.
Slang and people
Banger
A player who drives everything hard instead of dinking. Effective against beginners, exhausting against people who can block.
Dinker
The opposite. A patient soft-game player who waits for the pop-up.
Pickled
Losing 11–0.
Pickler
A pickleball player, usually an enthusiastic one.
Falafel
A shot hit with no power because the paddle was mistimed; a dead ball off the paddle face.
Flapjack
A shot that must be hit after a bounce, i.e. the serve or the return, or any ball that has to bounce under the two-bounce rule.
Nasty Nelson
A serve deliberately hit at the receiver’s partner, who is standing at the line. If it hits them before bouncing, the serving side wins the point. Legal, considered poor manners.
Tagging / body bag
Hitting an opponent with the ball. Legal, and a point for you if it hits them before it bounces out.
Golden pickle
Winning 11–0 without ever losing the serve. Very rare in side-out scoring.
Opa!
What some players shout after the third shot to signal that open volleying has begun. Regional and slightly ironic.
Kitchen fault / “foot!”
The call when someone volleys from the zone. The most argued call on a recreational court.
Equipment
Paddle
Not a racket. Solid face, no strings, typically 16 inches long and 8 wide, with a face of carbon fibre, fibreglass or composite over a polymer honeycomb core.
Pickleball (the ball)
A hard plastic ball with holes. Outdoor balls have 40 smaller holes and are harder; indoor balls have 26 larger holes and are softer and slower.
Edge guard / edgeless
The plastic rim around a paddle face, or its absence. Edgeless paddles have a slightly bigger sweet spot and chip more easily.
Grit / spin
The textured surface on modern paddle faces that grips the ball for spin. Regulated by USA Pickleball for tournament use.
Portable net
A 22-foot net on a frame that sets up in a few minutes on any flat surface, which is how most tennis courts and driveways become pickleball courts.