Chess is the slow thinking game of kings, queens, and sixty-four squares. Play chess, a chess set, chess club.
There are more possible games than atoms in the observable universe, which is why it resisted computers for so long and why brute force alone was never enough. The queen was a weak piece until the fifteenth century and became the strongest, which changed the game entirely. Note that the name comes through French from the Persian for king.
1nounchessA board game for two players on sixty-four squares.
“My grandfather taught me to play chess when I was seven.”
chess is a board game.
Old French esches is the plural of eschec, from Persian shah, a king. Check and checkmate come from the same king.
Proto-Indo-European
*tek- (receive)
Middle English
ches
English, today
chess
From Middle English ches. From Middle English ches, chesse, from Old French eschés, plural of eschec, from Medieval Latin scaccus, from Arabic شَاه (“king [in chess]”), from fa-cls شاه (“shah, king”), from pal 𐭬𐭫𐭪𐭠, from peo 𐏋. Compare German Schach and Italian scacchi. Compare French échecs (“chess”) and its descendants: Catalan escacs and Dutch schaak. More at check and shah (“king of Persia or Iran”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA