CHESS: the king is dead

　　When chess plays call “check” as a warning to an opponent, they are really saying: “Mind your king, he’s in danger.” Both the words check and chess originated in the Far East back somewhere in the dim ages and both come from the Persian word shah, or “king.” The term shah worked down through Arabic into Old French as eschec, into Middle English as chek, finally to check, which first only signified check as it is used in a chess game, but later logically came to mean a stop, loss, or hindrance, as it does in modern English. The companion word chess entered Middle English as ches from the Old French word eschecs, which is merely the plural form of eschec that gave us the word check. That is, chess is simply a series of check. When a Persian in ancient days had his opponent’s king hopelessly cornered, he announced shah-mat that is, “the king is dead.” If you pronounce those Persian words you will not be very far away from the modern chess player’s phrase, “check-mate.”

　　CUE: first a tail

　　The long, tapering stick that we use in billiards takes its name from the Latin cauda, “tail.” The spelling form is greatly changed, but this is natural, for the game of billiards was popular and played by all classes, and the name of the stick that is used in the game passed through dozens of dialects before it emerged as coe, then cue. Our word queue is exactly the same term, but its form was adopted from the modern French spelling. Its common meaning, of course, is “pigtail.” But other thing can be long and tapering too, like the queue that waits for the second show at the movies.

　　FORFEIT: originally a crime

　　With us a forfeit is not much more than a penalty in games. As Augustin Daly said in one of his plays back in the 8o’s: “I wish to gracious we could have one of those old-fashion forfeit games where kissing comes in.” But in Old English days a forfaite was a crime, as was a forfait in Old French. If you were discovered committing a forfait, you were arrested. This French word is a compound of the Old French words fors, “outside,” and fait, “done,” hence it literally meant “done outside” or “beyond,” and thus beyond the bounds of the law. This led to the original meaning of transgression, and transgress, itself, simply means “to step across,” that is, across the legal line. A sister word of forfeit is counterfeit from the French word contrefaire, “imitate” or “make parallel with.”

　　GOLF: named from a club

　　It is unfortunate that the origin of the name of such a popular game cannot be traced with absolute surety. The majority of the scholars claim that it came from the Dutch word kolf, the term for a club that was used in such games as hockey and croquet. This might indicate that golf began in Holland. It is true that most of the early accounts of the game are out of Scotland, but the records show, nevertheless, that the Scotch imported their best golf balls from the Dutch. The game grew to such popularity in Scotland that the government became disturbed. Golf was crowding out archery as a sport, and practice in archery was important to war. So in March,1457, the Scottish Parliament decreed that golf be “utterly cryit doun and nochtusit.” A few years later James I forbade it entirely, as he had done with bowling, yet the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer for 1503-1506 still show that the Crown’s money was going for golf balls. As s side light, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was a golf fiend and played a few rounds several days after the murder of her husband. However, as students of history will recall, the girl came to no good end.

　　GYMNASTICS: in the nude

　　It is easy to see the resemblance between our word gymnastics and its Greek parent gymnazo, which means “train naked” and comes from gymnos, meaning just plain “naked.” In ancient Greece, exercises were often performed in the nude by both boys and men, and, at one period, the famous Olympic track meets were run off in the nude. The Greeks of the time believed that nudity was conducive to health, just as our passionate sunbathers do today. The great Greek physician Hippocrates claimed that the sun was health and soothing to the nerves of the back. As an amusing side note, our mineral “gymnite” is so called because it is found at Bare Hills, Maryland! With us modern gymnastics are usually performed in a gymnasium while the term athletics generally applies to outdoor contests. The word athletics descends to us from the Greek athlon, the “prize” that the winning athlete received.

　　HAZARD: the die is cast

　　At one time hazard simply meant a dice game, as is indicated by the Arabic origin of the word, al, “the,” and zahr, “die.” But since the cast of the dice is uncertain, the Arabic word al-zahr came into Spanish as azar, meaning “an unexpected accident.” This entered French as hasard, English as hazard. Hazard is still a gambling game, but the word now also means exposure to the chance of loss or injury.