chess-board
(ˈtʃɛsbɔəd)
a. The board on which chess is played. Also fig.
| 1474 Caxton Chesse 133 Of the chesse borde how it is maad. 1562 J. Rowbotham Chess A viij b, Beholde here the forme of the Checker or Cheastbourde. 1652 Gaule Magastrom. 248 An oracle of Hercules, constituted by a chest-board. 1656 Beale Chess 2. 1718 Prior Alma iii. 488 Cards are dealt, and chess-boards brought. 1848 Kingsley Saint's Trag. iv. ii. 193 Earth her chess-board, and the men and women on it, merely pawns. 1855 Browning Men & Women I. 216 What have we gained then by our unbelief But a life of doubt diversified by faith, For one of faith diversified by doubt. We called the chess-board white,—we call it black. 1868 T. H. Huxley Lay Sermons (1870) iii. 36 The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. 1908 Westm. Gaz. 25 July 4/2 The chess-board of party politics. |
b. attrib. Also as adj., resembling a chess-board; like that of a chess-board.
| 1642 Howell For. Trav. xiv. (Arb.) 65 Sevill is like a chesse-bord table, having as many Moriscos as Spaniards. 1889 Cent. Dict., Chess-board canvas, a thick cotton canvas used as a foundation for embroidery, and divided into squares..in alternating patterns. 1903 Daily Chron. 11 Dec. 7/1 Such chessboard cities as Melbourne and Adelaide. 1904 Ibid. 10 Feb. 7/5 If the Russians adopt chess-board rules of war the next event will be an attack by Russian torpedo craft. 1911 R. C. Punnett Mendelism (ed. 3) iv. 33 The ‘chessboard’ method. For two series each consisting of four different types of gamete we require a square divided up into 16 parts. The four terms of the gametic series are first written horizontally..so that the series is repeated four times. It is then written vertically four times... In this simple mechanical way all the possible combinations are represented. 1923 Collingwood Roman Britain iii. 48 To go in for a town-planning scheme, to lay out a chess-board street-plan. 1962 Lancet 5 May 935/2 Using the chess-board technique, a reduction in the M.I.C. of fucidin was demonstrated. |
Hence ˈchess-board v. trans., to divide (land) into more or less equal portions resembling the squares on a chess-board.
| 1891 Daily News 12 May 4/8 Mr. Morley protested the other day against ‘chessboarding’ Ireland. 1924 Chambers's Jrnl. 747/1 A tract of low-lying, cultivated land, chess-boarded into fields under various crops. |