Pickleball Terms: Dink, Erne, ATP and More, Explained

The court

Kitchen: the non-volley zone, 7 feet deep on each side of the net. You can’t hit a volley while touching it or its line. “Kitchen” is a nickname; the rulebook says non-volley zone. See the kitchen rule.
Kitchen line (NVZ line): the line 7 feet from the net. It’s part of the kitchen.
Baseline, sideline, centerline: the back line, the side lines, and the line that splits each half into right and left service courts. See court dimensions.
Transition zone (“no-man’s-land”): the space between the baseline and the kitchen. It’s where you get caught with the ball at your feet, so players move through it rather than stand in it.

Volley serve: the usual serve, hit out of the air with an underhand swing, contact below the waist.
Drop serve: drop the ball, let it bounce, then hit it. The swing rules for the volley serve don’t apply.
Two-bounce rule: the serve must bounce before it’s returned, and the return must bounce before the serving side hits it. After that, anyone can volley.
Side out: the serve passes to the other side.
First server, second server: in doubles, each player on a side serves before a side out, except at the start of the game, when only one does. That’s why a game starts at “0-0-2”. See how scoring works.
Rally scoring: a scoring option where every rally wins a point, whoever served. Traditional side-out scoring only lets the serving side score.
Fault: anything that ends the rally against you: into the net, out, a kitchen violation, a serve into the wrong court. See faults.
No lets: a serve that clips the net and lands in the right court is in play.

Dink: a soft shot from near the kitchen line that drops into your opponents’ kitchen, so they can’t attack it.
Third-shot drop: the serving side’s first shot after the return, hit softly into the kitchen. Because of the two-bounce rule, the servers start at the back; the drop buys them time to move up.
Drive: a hard, low, flat shot.
Volley: any shot hit before the ball bounces.
Groundstroke: a shot hit after one bounce.
Lob: a high shot over players at the net.
Overhead (smash): a hard downward shot at a high ball.
Reset: a soft shot that takes the pace off an attack and lands in the kitchen, to get back to a dink rally.
Speed-up: a sudden hard shot out of a soft rally, usually aimed at the body.
Put-away: a shot hard or well-placed enough to end the rally.

Erne: a volley hit from outside the sideline, next to the net, after going around (or jumping over) the corner of the kitchen. It’s legal as long as you don’t touch the kitchen or its line during the volley, or afterward from its momentum. If you jump from inside the kitchen, both feet have to land outside it before you hit.
ATP (“around the post”): a shot that goes around the net post instead of over the net. It’s legal, even if it never rises above net height, as long as it lands in.
Nasty Nelson: a serve that hits the receiver’s partner before it bounces. The serving side wins the point. Legal, but in friendly play many people consider it bad manners.

Stacking: partners line up so each stays on their preferred side (say, both forehands in the middle). It’s legal as long as the right player serves and the right player receives.
Poach: crossing over to hit a ball that was coming to your partner.
Banger: a player who hits hard drives on almost everything.

Skill level, DUPR: a skill level (2.0 to 5.5+) describes what you can do; a DUPR rating (2.000 to 8.000) comes from match results. See skill levels and DUPR.
Open play: drop-in games at a public court, where players rotate in. See open play etiquette.
“Ball on!”: shouted when a stray ball rolls onto a court. The rally stops and is replayed.
Paddle tap: the end-of-game handshake: meet at the net and tap paddles.