chequered, checkered, ppl. a.
(ˈtʃɛkəd)
[f. chequer n. and v. + -ed; answering to OF. eschequeré, eschekeré, in sense 1, esp. in Her.]
1. Marked like a chess-board; hence, having a pattern of various colours in more or less geometrical arrangement.
| 1486 Bk. St. Albans, Her. F j, They be calde armys chekkerit when they ar made of ij colouris to the maner of a chekker. c 1530 Ld. Berners Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814) 497 The baner of Britaine wyth the chekered armes. 1654 Gayton Fest. Notes 97 He had the better of the whites in this checquer'd board; now have–at the blacks. 1674 Lond. Gaz. No. 901/4 Lost..a Green Checkerd Night-Bag. 1762 Falconer Shipwr. iii. 230 And checquer'd marble pav'd the hallow'd floors. 1779 Forrest Voy. N. Guinea 170 Checkered cloths. 1814 Scott Ld. of Isles i. xxx, His chequer'd plaid. 1836 Kingsley Lett. (1878) I. 33. |
2. a. Diversified in colour, variegated; marked with alternate light and shade.
| 1592 Greene Upst. Courtier 1 The checkerd (Paunsie) or party coloured Harts ease. 1632 Milton L'Allegro, Dancing in the Chequer'd shade. 1704 Pope Windsor For. 17 Here waving groves a checquer'd scene display, And part admit, and part exclude the day. 1730 Thomson Autumn 457 And mark his [the stag's] beauteous chequered sides with gore. 1795 Southey Joan of Arc vii. 440 Beneath the o'er-arching forests' chequer'd shade. |
b. chequered skipper, a species of the skipper butterfly, Cyclopides palæmon.
| 1839 W. Wood Index Entomol. i. 1 Papilio. Butterfly... 9 Paniscus Chequered Skipper. 1879 W. F. Kirby Europ. Butterflies 64 Cyclopides..C. Palæmon..(Chequered Skipper). Wings above blackish-brown, with angular tawny spots on the fore-wings, and round ones on the hind⁓wings. 1957 E. B. Ford Butterflies (ed. 3) i. 16 At the very end of the [18th] century one more butterfly was added to the British list, the Chequered Skipper, Carterocephalus palaemon. |
3. Diversified in character; full of constant alternation (esp. for the worse). Esp. in phr. chequered career.
| 1656 Manasseh ben Israel Vind. Judæorum in Phenix (1708) II. 423 The chequer'd and interwoven Vicissitudes and Turns of things here below. 1711 Swift Lett. (1767) III. 239 Our weather, for this fortnight past, is chequered, a fair and a rainy day. 1796–7 Instr. & Reg. Cavalry (1813) 190 Manœuvres of a corps retiring..must be more or less accomplished by chequered movements: one body by its numbers, or position, facing and protecting the retreat of another. 1808 Scott Marm. iii. Introd., Life's chequered scene of joy and sorrow. 1869 ‘Mark Twain’ Innoc. Abr. xxxviii. 407 Her career, for eighteen centuries, has been a chequered one. 1881 H. W. Nesfield (title) A Chequered career, or Fifteen years in Australia and New Zealand. 1887 Stevenson Underwoods i. xii. 24 The chequered silence. 1928 Melody Maker Feb. 188/3 Jay Whidden and his band has had a chequered career as far as the Radio is concerned. 1967 Listener 17 Aug. 203/3 My career with 20th Century Fox was somewhat chequered. |