Why a Tennis Score Starts With an Egg
In tennis, love means zero points. The explanation often given is that the word came from the French l’œuf, meaning “the egg.” A zero looks like an egg, and the French expression was adapted into the English scoring vocabulary as “love.”
The connection is visual rather than emotional: a player at love has scored nothing in the current game. When an umpire calls “15-love,” the score is 15 to zero—not a measure of affection or sportsmanship.
A Small Word With a Big Job
Tennis uses its own sequence of point scores—love, 15, 30, and 40—rather than simply counting one, two, three, and four. “Love” gives the opening score a compact name, while the egg-shaped zero offers a memorable explanation for how that name may have entered the game.
So when the score is love-all, the match is not declaring mutual devotion. It means neither player has won a point yet.
