![]() As check this survives mainly in American English (as in ‘hat-check’)Ĭheck as in ‘pattern of squares’ (14th c.) is probably short for chequer, which in turn is a reduced form of exchequer, a word derived ultimately from Vulgar Latin *scaccus. Among these in the 18th century was ‘token used as a counterfoil for verifying something, such as an amount’. Or maybe it comes from the Arabic shahu-ka mat, literally, your king is dead. Together the two Arabic words mean the sheikh or master or even king is dead, which signifies the end of a game of chess. ![]() If all of these conditions are met, the attacking player wins via checkmate. This happens when one of the players is threatening the other king and it cannot move to any other squares, cannot be protected by another piece and the checking piece cannot be captured. ![]() The object cannot be the opponent themselves. As implied by the definition, the object of the checkmate action must be the king piece of your opponent, as no other piece is used to define the state of checkmate. From the very specific chess sense there developed more general applications such as ‘attack’, ‘arrest’, ‘stop’, ‘restrict’, and ‘verify’. Check comes from Arabic 'Sheikh' mate comes from 'mat'. One of the most common ways to end a chess game is by checkmate. The only transitive verb usage I've heard in the context of chess itself is the one given as the second definition in your question. Here is a nicer description from Ĭheckmate (14th c.) comes via Old French eschec mat from Persian shāh māt ‘the king is left helpless’. eschec mat, from Arabic shah mat "the king died" (see check (n.)), which according to Barnhart is a misinterpretation of Persian mat "be astonished" as mata "to die," mat "he is dead." Hence Persian shah mat, the ultimate source of the word, would be literally "the king is left helpless, the king is stumped." As a verb, from late 14c.
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