Games

Canter

After the martyrdom and sanctification of Thomas Becket under Henry II, the saint's grave in Canterbury cathedral became a place of pilgrimage - whence Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, told by a group of pilgrims on their way to the shrine.

The gait of their horses became known as the canterbury, later the canter.

Chess

The object of chess is to trap the shah, "king." The winner then announces that the king is "dead" (mat): "checkmate," or shahmat.

Shah evolved, through an Old French plural, esches, into chess; also into checkers, both the game and the design.

The Exchequer, which in England deals with the financial side of government, probably derived from the checkerboard tables, eschequier, used in the Middle Ages to facilitate counting. A bank check comes from the same source.

The game of chess seems to have entered Europe with the Arabs, at the time of their conquest of Spain. They had learned it from the Persians, who apparently found it in India.

Hazard

The hazards of life once referred to dice. The word comes from Arabic az-zahr, "the die." The Crusaders probably brought it back with them to France, whence as les hasards, it crossed to England with the Norman Conquest. Some variants of craps are thus called the hazards game.

Ouija

The ouija board comes from French oui (yes) and German ja (yes).

Tennis

Tennis is sometimes said to come from French tenez, "hold," a cry supposedly uttered by French players of this ancient Arabic game. But there is no record of such a cry, and the earliest occurrence of even the conjecture is in the 17th century; while tenetz, the English adaptation of the original Arabic word, tanaz, "leap," goes back to 1400.

Racquet probably comes from Arabic rahet, "palm of the hand." The original form of the game was played with the palm alone.

The c in racquet doesn't belong there, being a garbling of French raquette and English racket.