Staunton
(ˈstɔːntən)
The name of Howard Staunton (1810–74), English chess-player and writer, used attrib. and absol. to designate chess-men of a design now accepted as standard.
| [1891 R. B. Swinton Chess for Beginners ii. 5 A chessboard and a set of men are necessary. The latter alone are to be purchased at all prices, from sets in ‘African ivory’, after Staunton's pattern, down to flimsy wooden pieces. Ibid. 7 Your wooden men..will..be easily identified with the drawings of Staunton's men which form headpieces to the..chapters.] 1898 Dict. Nat. Biogr. LIV. 117/1 Staunton's name was conferred on the set of chessmen which are recognised as the standard type among English-speaking peoples. His ‘Chess Player's Text-book’ was issued in 1849, without date, to be sold with the Staunton chessmen. 1913 H. J. R. Murray Hist. Chess ii. x. 773 Chessmen of fanciful shapes and forms are often made as curiosities. For actual play, most players would prefer to use the ‘Staunton chessmen’, the pattern of which Howard Staunton designed in 1849. 1951 G. Frankau Oliver Trenton ix. 77 The set of ivory Stauntons I won from him. 1959 L. Barden Chess ii. 14 The pieces of a ‘Staunton design’ are..the most popular nowadays... The photograph shows what they look like in your Staunton-type set. 1977 M. Kelly in D. Marcus Best Irish Short Stories II. 66 The Staunton with its austere lack of pretension. 1979 P. Alexander Show me Hero iv. 55 A chess-board and one of the earliest Staunton sets. |