Chess

How to spell chess

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce chess

What does chess mean?

1. nounA two-player strategy board game played on a chequered board with sixteen pieces each, the aim being to checkmate the opponent's king.

Chess in a sentence

• He learned to play chess from his grandfather over many quiet evenings.

• The club meets every Thursday for a chess tournament in the library.

Where does chess come from?

Language of origin: French

Chess comes into English through the Old French word esches, the plural of eschec, which meant 'check' as in a threat to the king. That French term traces back through Arabic shah and ultimately to the Persian shah, meaning 'king', the very cry a player makes when the king is attacked. The name of the game therefore literally records the moment of putting the royal piece in danger, and the related Persian phrase shah mat ('the king is helpless') gives us 'checkmate'. English adopted the word during the medieval period, when the game spread from the Islamic world into Europe. The single-syllable spelling, with its doubled 's', is what survived after the French plural ending wore away, leaving the compact modern form.

How the word is built

• chess (single root; from Old French eschés, plural of eschec 'check')