mat

mat¹ checkmate, checkmated

Pronunciation

• /mat/^[1]

Forms

mat (feminine mate, masculine plural mats, feminine plural mates)^[1]

Etymology

It is from French échec et mat, the phrase announcing the mate.^[2][1] The phrase is borrowed from Arabic شَاه مَاتَ (šāh māta, “the king is dead”), whose first word, the king in chess, comes from Persian شاه (šāh, “king”).^[2][1][3][4] Wiktionary takes the phrase from شاه مات (šāh māt, “the king is conquered”), perhaps conflated with مَاتَ (māta, “to die”);^[1] Rey also has it come from Persian through Arabic.^[5] Bloch and Wartburg stress that it has nothing to do with the adjective meaning “dull”.^[4] For P. Guiraud the Persian route is not proven and the chess terms come from Frankish *skak (“booty”), so that the phrase would mean “taken and destroyed”.^[5]

Compare Italian scaccomatto, Spanish mate and Portuguese mate.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is first found about 1155 in Wace's Brut, Au geu del mat “at the game of mate”, for the move that mates the king.^[2] The adjective appears in Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain (1176–81), used figuratively of a player whose king is mated, and in Ambroise about 1195.^[2][7][3]

Semantic evolution

The game gave figurative phrases early: dire eschec et mat (Gautier de Coinci, about 1224), faire eschec et mat à (1316) and avoir un escheq et mat (Régnier, 1609).^[2] The classical language used donner échec et mat à quelqu'un (1606) for defeating someone completely.^[5][6] The Roman de la Rose already plays on the rule that a side without a king cannot be mated.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1155 – Wace's Brut has geu del mat.^[2]
• 1176–81 – Chrétien de Troyes uses the adjective of a beaten player.^[2]
• c. 1224 – Gautier de Coinci uses dire eschec et mat figuratively.^[2]
• 1316 – Faire eschec et mat à is recorded.^[2]
• 1606 – Donner échec et mat à quelqu'un appears.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (chess) Of the king: Checkmated, in check with no way out: Échec et mat !^[8][2][1]
2. Of a player: having a mated king, and so having lost; figuratively, beaten.^[8][7]

Noun

1. (chess) Checkmate, the move that mates the king: faire un beau mat.^[7][6][1]

Word family

• mater

mat² matt, dull

Etymology tree of mat²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin madeō

Latin mattus

French mat

Italian matto

From the same root · mat²

Latin madēscō ← madeō

Latin madidus ← madeō

Italian mattare ← matto

Pronunciation

• /mat/^[1]
• Also: /ma/^[1]

Forms

mat (feminine mate, masculine plural mats, feminine plural mates)^[1]

Etymology

The word for “matt” is of uncertain origin.^[2][5] It is usually taken as inherited from Latin mattus (“drunk”), which Petronius uses of someone whose drink makes him gloomy, and identified with a Late Latin homonym meaning “sad” (7th–10th centuries).^[2][5][4][1] The Latin adjective is explained as a dialect form of *maditus, a popular past participle of madeō (“to be wet, to be drunk”);^[2][5][4][9] Isidore glosses the word as “moistened, softened”.^[2][5][4][9] The Grand Robert also cites P. Guiraud, who made it a deverbal noun of mater “to crush, kill”, from Latin mactō.^[3]

Rey thinks the early moral sense “vanquished” points to a crossing in Medieval Latin with the Arabic word of the chess phrase;^[5] Littré too derived the old sense “weary, humbled” from the chess word.^[6] Bloch and Wartburg relate Italian matto (“mad”) and Spanish matar (“to kill”), in which the Arabic word was laid over the Romance one.^[4] Compare Old Occitan mat (“sad”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found at the turn of the 12th century in Alberic de Pisançon's Alexandre, meaning “vanquished, downcast, afflicted”: Tant rey fesist mat ne mendic “he made so many kings downcast or beggars”.^[2][5] Anglo-Norman has it from 1121–25 for “dejected, exhausted, beaten”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle French it meant “beaten, crushed” and “sad”, and of the body “worn out” (about 1165), “weakened” and “withered, scorched by the sun” (Rutebeuf, about 1265); these senses were usual until the 16th century.^[5][2][4]

Modern usage kept the visual sense “dull, lacking light”: first of the weather, temps mat et pluvieux (1424), then of unpolished metal or stone (1545, or mat in Cotgrave 1611), of a colour or the complexion (1621), of glass that is not transparent (1833) and of photographic paper (1899).^[2][5][3] A few technical uses keep the idea “thick, compact”: broderie mate (1718), the mat of lace (1844), a dough that has not risen (1782).^[2][5] The sense “dull, without resonance”, of a sound, is found in medicine in 1814 and generally in 1829.^[2][5]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – Alberic de Pisançon uses it for “vanquished, afflicted”.^[2]
• c. 1265 – Rutebeuf uses it for “withered”.^[2][5]
• 1424 – Temps mat et pluvieux “dull rainy weather” is recorded.^[2][5]
• 1545 – It is used of an unpolished diamond.^[2]
• 1611 – Cotgrave records or mat.^[2]
• 1621 – Couleur mate “matt colour” appears.^[2][5]
• 1814 – Medicine speaks of a son mat.^[2][5]
• 1899 – Papier mat appears in photography.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Unpolished, not glossy: de l'argent mat.^[8][2]
2. Matt, without shine: une peinture mate, papier mat.^[8][1]
3. Not transparent, opaque: verre mat.^[8][2]
4. Of skin: fairly dark and not translucent, olive: teint mat, peau mate.^[8]
5. Of a sound: Dull, with little resonance: un bruit mat.^[8][2]

Noun

1. The unpolished or unshiny part of a surface, and in lacemaking the solid parts of the pattern.^[2][5]

Word family

• matir
• matité