Pickleball Terms & Slang, Explained

Walk onto a pickleball court for the first time and you will hear a whole vocabulary — dinks, drops, the kitchen, an Erne. None of it is complicated once someone explains it. Here are the terms you will actually hear, grouped so they make sense together.

The shots

• Dink:a soft shot hit from near the kitchen line that arcs just over the net and lands in the opponent's kitchen, so it cannot be attacked. The backbone of the soft game.
• Drive:a hard, flat groundstroke hit with pace, usually from the baseline — the aggressive alternative to a soft shot.
• Third shot drop:the most important shot in pickleball. After the serve and return, the serving team hits a soft shot that drops into the opponent's kitchen, buying time to advance to the net.
• Volley: any ball hit out of the air before it bounces. Legal only outside the kitchen.
• Groundstroke: a ball hit after it has bounced.
• Lob: a high, deep shot hit over the opponents to push them off the net.
• Reset: a soft shot that takes pace off a hard-hit ball, dropping it back into the kitchen to neutralize an attack.
• Put-away / slam: a hard overhead or volley aimed to end the point when the ball floats up too high.
• Half-volley:hitting the ball immediately after it bounces, in one motion — a “short hop.”

The court and the rules

• Kitchen / non-volley zone (NVZ): the 7-foot zone on each side of the net where you cannot volley. See kitchen rules.
• Two-bounce rule: the ball must bounce once on each side after the serve before anyone volleys.
• Side out: when serving passes from one team to the other after both partners have lost their serve.
• Fault:any rule violation that ends the rally — a ball out, into the net, a kitchen violation, or a serving error.

The strategy and slang

• Banger: a player who hits almost everything hard rather than playing the soft game. Often a (affectionate) label for a newer or tennis-style player.
• Poach: in doubles, crossing over to intercept a ball meant for your partner.
• Stacking: a doubles positioning tactic where partners line up on the same side to keep their stronger sides (usually forehands) in the middle. See doubles strategy.
• ATP (around the post):a legal shot that goes around the outside of the net post, below net height — there is no rule it must clear the net.
• Erne: an advanced move where a player jumps around or over the kitchen to volley a ball right at the net, landing outside the zone to stay legal.
• Dead ball: a ball no longer in play after a fault or a point ends.
• Paddle tap:the friendly tap of paddles between players at the end of a game, pickleball's version of a handshake.

Putting the language to use

You do not need to memorize any of this — it sticks fast once you play. The terms that matter most for a beginner are dink, drive, third shot drop and the kitchen, because those four describe how nearly every point unfolds. Once they click, the rest is easy. For the game they all fit into, start with how to play pickleball, and to put the vocabulary into a game plan, read strategy for beginners.

Ratings and skill levels

• Rating (2.0–5.0+): a number describing skill level. A 2.5 is a beginner, a 3.5 is a solid recreational player, and 4.5+ is advanced or competitive. Leagues and tournaments group players by rating so games stay even.
• DUPR: the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating, a widely used rating system that adjusts your number based on actual match results.
• Open play / rec play: casual sessions where players rotate on and off shared courts, usually via a paddle queue, rather than pre-arranged matches.

More slang you will hear

• Speed-up: suddenly attacking a dink rally by hitting a ball hard, trying to catch the opponent off guard.
• Shake and bake: a doubles play where one partner drives the ball and the other charges the net to put away the pop-up it forces.
• Pancake / dead dink: a dink hit so soft and low it dies at the net, giving the opponent nothing to attack.
• Falafel:a mishit that comes off the paddle with no power and falls short — the friendly name for a shanked ball.