Other forms: stalemated, stalemates
A stalemate is a deadlock where neither side can win and neither can move on. Six weeks of talks, the same two demands, nobody shifting an inch.
The word comes from chess, where it means something exact: the player whose turn it is has no legal move and is not in check, so the game is drawn. That is the part worth holding on to — a stalemate is not a defeat and not a victory, and it is not checkmate. Away from the board it belongs to negotiations, strikes and wars: talks ended in stalemate, the two sides have reached a stalemate. There is a verb too, less common, for forces that stop each other dead along a line. In a report, impasse and deadlock will do the same work.
1nounstalemateA situation in which neither side can win or move forward.
“Six weeks of talks ended in stalemate.”
synonyms: impasse, deadlock
2nounchess(chess) A position where the player to move has no legal move and is not in check, so the game is drawn.
“He saved a lost game by forcing stalemate with his last piece.”
3verbbringTo bring something to a complete standstill.
“The two armies stalemated each other along the river for a year.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
stalemate is a kind of deadlock.
Also accepted in games: impasse
Stalemate is put together from stale and mate — the same mate that ends checkmate. Its home is the chessboard, and everything else the word describes, from strikes to border wars, is borrowed from a game where that position ends things with nobody winning.
From stale + mate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA