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Checkmate comes from the Persian shah mat, usually understood as the king is helpless or the king is stumped.
More about this fact
- Source
- Oxford English Dictionary
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Includes A companion was originally someone you shared bread with: the word comes from the Latin com, with, and panis, bread., Esperanto was published in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof under the pen name Doktoro Esperanto, meaning one who hopes., Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary helped make spellings such as color and center standard in American English., Silbo Gomero, a whistled form of Spanish used on La Gomera in the Canary Islands, is recognised by UNESCO as cultural heritage., The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary took 44 years to publish in instalments, from 1884 to 1928., The word alphabet comes from alpha and beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. and more.
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