Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 111. The word origin today is checkmate.
Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. The word checkmate is said in a game of
chess. You know, the Western chess when an opponent's king is trapped and cannot
escape or be defended. So that usually signifies the end of the game because
the king is trapped therefore the game is over. Even if the other person looked
like they had better pieces of better points, if that person's king is trapped
they lose. By extension, in English it is sometimes used in other situations in
which there is a final action that clearly shows one has lost in a
situation and your opponent or rival has no alternatives or counter moves. Kind of
in that sense. All right. So let's continue here. The origin came from
Middle English which was " checkmat. " I guess at one time which came from the
old French which was "eschemat." Something like that. That was originally
derived from Arabic " Shah mat." Okay. That many translate as the king is dead. All right.
So I guess in Arabic "shah" is kind of like king. I remember they used to always
talk about the Shah of Iran. So I remember that they always had Shah. So I guess
Shah is like a king. Although some say that interpretation may be a little off.
Meaning not quite correct from the Spanish influence of mata or matar. Yeah. I
know in Spanish matar means to, to die (or murder) , Meaning to die. Many say the Persian you
know, which of course Arabic is spoken in Iran.You know because of course Iran
used to be Persia. Mat more correctly means like either astounded or
overwhelmed or hopeless which actually better fits into the game of chess
anyway because technically in chess they say the King is not killed. He's really...
he's more like captured or or you know he's trapped basically and
that's the end of the game. So that, that sort of definition would actually fit
better. All right. And let's continue. Just a couple of examples of how
you may see it. I mean the first one of course is in a game of chess somebody
might say, " And checkmate." You know, " The game is over."
That's it. Or here we use an example your counter move put your opponent in
checkmate. She has run out of options. So this could be like in another
situation where you know, people are either competing or challenging each
other. I do remember not that... you know, not that long ago, during this trial , with
they had with trying to impeach Trump. They wanted ....the Democrats wanted to call
a witness called John Bolton you know, which was in the Trump administration. He
ended up getting fired and supposedly he wrote a book recently and you know, the
Democrats wanted to call him. They think he had something important to say, but
even just before when they were they were going to do it. You know, they were
going to take a vote whether that you know, that you called a witnesses or not.
Because of course you know, that was all supposed to be done in the pre-trial in the
pre trial of the Senate. The one that was in the House of Representatives and Trump
had tweeted out two videos . They were real videos where John Bolton was on you
know on the news on TV shows where he was saying that that phone call with
that he had with Ukraine was good and he knew what he was doing and everything
was perfectly right. So it was kind of like a Trump tweeted out checkmate. You
know when he did this cuz at this point. Even if the Democrats got to call
witnesses and John Bolton came up and even if he said something different now
makes him look bad because here he was saying everything was fine.
He did everything correct and that would have made him look like a liar too.
So yes. So anyway that's a way that we use the word checkmate. When it's not in
relation to actually the game of chess. When there are moves and countermoves
almost like a game of chess. You know, chess is suppose
to be based on like war basically. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it was clear.
Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.