chess

Pronunciation

• IPA: /tʃes/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ches, borrowed from Old French esches (“chessmen”) with its first syllable dropped, earlier eschecs, the plural of eschec (“check, the game of chess”) (see check).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The game was named after its key move.^[3] Etymonline notes that its original name was a Sanskrit word for the four parts of an army, elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers, which survives through Persian and Arabic in Spanish ajedrez.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The game: the 13th century in Etymonline, probably before 1300 in Sir Tristrem in Barnhart.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The pieces or the board were called chess from 1303, a sense now obsolete,^[7] and the word was used figuratively from about 1657.^[7] It was also used loosely, from 1432–50, to translate the names of Greek board games.^[7] Chessmen is from the 15th century.^[4] In modern French, échec (“check, defeat”) is distinguished from its plural échecs (“chess”).^[3] In Sussex dialect chess was a plaid pattern, as in the black and white chessy shawls.^[8]

Timeline

• 13th century – chess.^[3]
• 1303 – the chessmen (obsolete).^[7]
• 1432–50 – for Greek board games.^[7]
• 15th century – chessmen.^[4]
• c. 1657 – figurative chess.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A board game for two players, each beginning with sixteen pieces of six kinds that move by their own rules, the aim being to checkmate the opponent's king.

Related words

• check
• checkmate
• exchequer
• checker

Usage notes

Several other words are spelled chess: a brome grass such as cheat (1736, of unknown origin),^[5][9] a floorboard of a pontoon bridge,^[9] an obsolete chess, a tier or storey (about 1460),^[7] and in Scotland a window sash.^[8]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin