A Classicist's Look At Chess

Grice was Lit. Hum. Oxon 1938 (cum laude) -- and he played chess. In Latin, Chess is "de scaccorum ludo ... scribere non erit molestum.

From the OED;

chess. Etym: `chequers, chess', pl. of eschec (escac, etc.) check.

So med.L. had scacci, Ital. scacchi as name of the game.

1 a.

A game of skill played by two persons, on a chequered board divided into sixty-four squares; each player having a set of sixteen `men', consisting of king, queen, two
bishops, two knights, two castles or rooks, and eight pawns; the object of
the game is to place the adversary's king in checkmate.

First use: 1180 A. Neckam

De Nat. Rerum [cap. De Scaccis],

De scaccorum ludo..scribere non erit molestum].

1300 Cursor M. (Cott.) 28338,

I ha me liked..til idel gammes, chess and tablis.

1325 Coer de L. 2172 They found Kyng Richard at play, At the chess in his galeye".

Fig.

1657 Let. in Clarendon Hist. Reb. xv. (1847) 857/2,

I have often observed, that a desperate game at Chess has been recover'd
after the loss of the Nobility, only by playing the pawns well."

--- Etc.