GAMBIT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Gambit

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/gˈæmbɪt/ Listen

Gambit

noun

An opening remark intended to secure an advantage for the speaker. Synonym: ploy.

A maneuver in a game or conversation. Synonyms: ploy, stratagem.

A chess move early in the game in which the player sacrifices minor pieces in order to obtain an advantageous position.

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Etymology of 'Gambit'

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"Gambit" Quotes from Famous Books

... copy, if these pages were allowed under any circumstances to be the vehicle of illustrations. If, however, he or she really wishes to see the way the pieces stood as they were placed at the beginning of the game, (the Widow's gambit,) he or she had better at once take a sheet of paper, draw an oval, and arrange the characters according to ...

— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... upon neat ways of proposing marriage. I don't know why it should have done, but it had. It was a kind of secret exercise that had not had any definite aim at the time, but which now recurred to him with extraordinary force. He couldn't think of anything in the world that wasn't the gambit to a proposal. It was almost irresistibly fascinating to think how immensely a few words from him would excite and revolutionise Minnie. She was sitting at the table with a workbasket among the tea things, mending a glove in ...

— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... I'd like to know," Edwardson said, slipping with ease into an old conversational gambit. "How far ...

— The Hour of Battle • Robert Sheckley

... make rational allowance for his poor response to her naive overtures. But that seemed so abnormal, he felt forced to fall back on the theory that her declaration had been nothing more than a minor gambit in whatever game she was playing, and that consequently she bore no malice because of its failure. No matter which explanation was the true one, no matter which keyed her temper toward him, Lanyard found himself liking the woman better, not as a woman but as another human being, than he had ever ...

— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... three pawns almost straight off, then a knight, and shortly after a bishop; they were playing in fact the famous Three Sailors' Gambit. ...

— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

Words linked to "Gambit" : chess move, stratagem, remark, maneuver, tactical maneuver, input, manoeuvre, tactical manoeuvre, comment