Other forms: checkmates
Checkmate is the move that traps the king and ends a chess game. Deliver checkmate, checkmate in three, that is checkmate.
The king is never actually captured — the game ends the moment no legal move escapes the attack. Check means the king is attacked and can escape; checkmate means it cannot. Stalemate is a draw, where a player has no legal move but is not in check. Figuratively, checkmate means a position from which nothing can be done, and it is used freely outside the game.
1nouncheckmateThe chess move that traps the king and ends the game.
“It was checkmate in about eleven moves.”
2nounpositionA position from which nothing can be done.
“The vote left the whole board in checkmate.”
checkmate is a final move.
Persian shah mat means the king is helpless or defeated, borrowed through Arabic into Old French. Chess, check, cheque and exchequer all descend from shah, the Persian king — including the bank cheque, by way of a chequered counting cloth.
Middle English
chekmat
English, today
checkmate
From Middle English chekmat. From Middle English chekmat, from Old French eschec mat, from Arabic شَاه مَاتَ, from fa-cls شاه مات (“the king [is] amazed”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Games & Toys, Chess & Card Games