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Checkmate   /tʃˈɛkmˌeɪt/   Listen
Checkmate

noun
1.
Complete victory.
2.
A chess move constituting an inescapable and indefensible attack on the opponent's king.  Synonym: mate.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Checkmate" Quotes from Famous Books



... Pennsylvania Dutch Dunkers. From the very first they have made the church central. When these great changes of which I have spoken began to occur, the leaders of that community began to take measures to checkmate the attractions of the towns for their young people. For example, Fourth of July was made a day of celebration at the church. When the people of other communities were flocking to town by hundreds, the youth of that community were gathering, in response to plans well thought out beforehand, ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... the first move, and met checkmate; the second move would be through Allis's mother; he determined upon that course. All his old cunning must have surely departed from him if he could not win this girl. Fate was backing him up most strenuously. Diablo had been cast into his hands—thrust upon ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... set forth were too serious and too patent to have escaped his notice. However that may be, he had no sooner obtained a clear insight into the league of the princes than he set to work with his usual activity and knowledge of the world to checkmate it. To rally together his own partisans and to separate his foes, such was the twofold end he pursued, at first with some success. In a meeting of the princes which was held at Tours, and in which friends and enemies were still mingled together, he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... superintendent of the Southwestern Division of the Pullman system, with head-quarters at St. Louis. In those days every session of the Colorado legislature saw its anti-Pullman rate reduction bill, which Wickersham, as I shall call him, because that is not his name, was commissioned to checkmate, strangle, or make away with in committee by the aid of annual passes, champagne, and the mysterious potency of the national bank-note. As was remarked by E.D. Cowen, to whose notes I am indebted for refreshing ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... read much above a dozen words, however, his look of vexation gave place to one of astonishment, and that, in turn, to one of intense satisfaction. "Well, I'll be shot! Most extraordinary! Aha! I begin to see light. Yes, yes, of course... Capital! splendid! I know how to checkmate 'em. Only just in time though, by Jove!" I heard him mutter as he read on, at first almost inaudibly, but louder and louder as his excitement grew, until he had completed the perusal of the principal document. Then he turned it over again and looked at the date, looked ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... however, was soon discovered and, in order to checkmate it, a gun was placed in the path, crammed with case shot, the infantry were got ready to fire in volleys, and a Maxim ranged for rapid fire. Presently the enemy were seen, hurrying along to occupy the next ambush; and the big gun poured ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say onions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo's papli, by all that's gorgeous. Play low, pardner. Slide. Bonsoir la compagnie. And snares of the poxfiend. Where's the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e'en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil yu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown of his hed 2 night. Crickey, I'm about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... publicly, to make Monte Carlo impossible for him. And then, suddenly, he remembered his duty. They were trusting him in Downing Street. Chance had put into his hands so many threads of this diabolical plot. It was for him to checkmate it. He was the only person who could checkmate it. This was no time for him to think of personal revenge, no time for him to brood over his own broken life. There was work still to be ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... very sure of his position yet. What had he proposed to the Duke? And how had the Duke answered him? What was to be the result of the visit, or would there be any? Selpdorf held the Duke's confidence. He must checkmate England and openly throw his influence into the German scale. No half courses could any longer ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... selfishness; nothing can fix that levity to a recognition of the realities of things. Bolingbroke has not a word now about the cause of the Stuarts; for the moment he cannot think of that. His new scheme is to make out that his enemies were, after all, the true Jacobites; he will checkmate them that way—"in a month, if you please." On the very same day Mr. John Barber, the printer of some of Swift's pamphlets, afterwards an Alderman and Lord Mayor, writes to Swift and tells him, speaking of Bolingbroke, that "when my lord gave me the letter" ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... vigorous exercise a man may surely keep his wits. We will labor steadily upon the soil, and never raise our thoughts from the clod we are turning! Even here the Doctor is too quick for us, and cries, "Checkmate!" with the fact that the Hodges of England and the agriculturists of Berkshire have a great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... his face, To all the Saints commending; And candles to the Virgin vow'd, As save-alls 'gain'st his ending. Down fell the mate, he thought his fate, Checkmate, was close impending! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... Hooker, with suddenness, moved up the Rappahannock, crossed at Richard's Ford, moved up the Rapidan, crossed at Ely and Germanna Fords, turned east and south and came into the Wilderness. He meant to pass through and, with three great columns, checkmate Lee at Fredericksburg. Before he could do so Lee shook himself free, left to watch the Rappahannock, and Sedgwick, ten thousand pawns and an able knight, and himself ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... cities" seems to have resembled our chess or draughts. The board was divided into five parts. Each player tried to checkmate the other by the skillful use of his men. Games of hazard with dice and astragaloi were most likely greater favorites with the topers than the intellectual ones hitherto described. The number of dice ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... measures to checkmate Argyll, Montrose joined the army, which had now swelled to twenty-five thousand men, was the first to cross the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched straight on Newcastle. The town surrendered without firing a shot, and Montrose sent ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... free from conversation. Nobody present felt inclined to be chatty. John Parker was wondering what Miguel Farrel's next move would be, and was formulating means to checkmate it; Kay, knowing what Don Mike's next move would be and knowing further that she was about to checkmate it, was silent through a sense of guilt; Mrs. Parker's eight miles in the saddle that afternoon had fatigued her to the point of dissipating her buoyant spirits, and Farrel had fallen into ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... rage of Murray Bradshaw at being interrupted just at the moment when he was, as he thought, about to cry checkmate and finish the first great game he had ever played may well be imagined. But it could not be helped. Myrtle had exercised the customary privilege of young ladies at parties, and had turned from talking with ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... woman's hand it was all swept into naught. Both innocent of intention, both ignorant of effect. Yet it was true. Jerome and I, as we then thought, disposed our pieces with great care and circumspection, advanced the pawns, guarded the king, and made ready for the final checkmate. Yet a woman's caprice overturned the board, scattered our puppets far and wide, and by the tyranny of an accident recast our game on other lines, without rule ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... from Ethel's superiority, without encountering a second edition in Hal. As she thought of it, and of how she would checkmate Hal's possible plans to make her home with them, she smiled to herself a little cruelly in ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... stroke, score; lucky hit, fortunate hit, good hit, good stroke; direct hit, bull's eye; goal, point, touchdown; home run, homer, hole-in-one, grand slam; killing[make money], windfall bold stroke, master stroke; ten strike [U.S.]; coup de maitre[Fr], checkmate; half the battle, prize; profit &c. (acquisition) 775. continued success; good fortune &c. (prosperity) 734; time well spent. advantage over; upper hand, whip hand; ascendancy, mastery; expugnation|, conquest, victory, subdual[obs3]; subjugation &c. (subjection) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... was coming on a job like this, to make my gentleman there disgorge, and not have a mate to back me? Now, then, both of you; it's of no use to get into a passion. You threaten police. I checkmate you with the little tool I have here—my reserve force. There, you had better take it quietly, Stratton. What are a few hundreds to you? I give up the girl and her fortune; what more do you want? As for myself, I only wish for enough to live comfortably and in peace without troubling anybody. ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... experience, so dearly bought in the garden, had shown him that he was utterly incapable of any successful resistance. He looked around him for the means of escape, and racked his brain for some expedient that would enable him to checkmate his unwieldy opponent; but he looked in vain, and thought in vain. There was nothing upon which to hang even the faintest hope ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... ever be upon the traitors concerned. It was certain that dastardly influences were at work, but thanks to the sterling loyalty of certain men from among the Dutch population, the plans of the conspirators were more or less known, and arrangements were made to checkmate them. All honour to these true patriots who took a big risk for the ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... "but Braxton is sure that something is wrong, and so is that cunning wolf, Yellow Panther. They want to hold us here in the village until they find out the truth; but we are willing to stay, that we may checkmate what they do. I can work on old Gray Beaver, whose age makes him favor ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It would have been a difficult role to play; Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco



Words linked to "Checkmate" :   triumph, chess move, chess game, mate, shell, vanquish, chess, trounce, victory, beat, crush, beat out



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