checkerboard

American  

[chek-er-bawrd, -bohrd] / ˈtʃɛk ərˌbɔrd, -ˌboʊrd /

noun

checkerboards plural

1. a board marked off into 64 squares of two alternating colors, arranged in eight vertical and eight horizontal rows, on which checkers or chess is played.

2. a design resembling this.

   The garden was laid out in a checkerboard.

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verb (used with object)

1. to arrange in or mark with a checkerboard pattern.

   a wall checkerboarded with black and white tiles.

checkerboard British  

/ ˈtʃɛkəˌbɔːd /

noun

1. Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): draughtboard.  a square board divided into 64 squares of alternating colours, used for playing checkers or chess

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• checkerboards
  plural

Etymology

Origin of checkerboard

First recorded in 1765–75; checker ¹ + board

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

checkerboard checkerboards

But to try one of Vancouver’s most beloved Chinese restaurants, make for Chinatown BBQ, where the checkerboard floors and hanging meat evoke a classic Cantonese chopshop.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 27, 2025

For added whimsy, the tree is the centerpiece of an “Alice in Wonderland”-style checkerboard of tile and grass.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 15, 2025

So much so that covering the kitchen tile with blue and red checkerboard linoleum was one of their first dates in 2022, two years before Zaletel, 32, moved in.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025

Powers and his team repeatedly paired a projected checkerboard visual display with a one-second tone.

From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2025

I passed a checkerboard tablecloth like something you’d see at a pizza joint.

From "Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel" by Harlan Coben

For a restaurant better known for cornbread and checkerboards than market volatility, the whole thing had the air of an identity crisis unfolding in real time.

From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2025

The wildfires that devastated Southern California, reducing entire neighborhoods to checkerboards of ash, have left behind tough questions about how to rebuild in this land of dry brush and wind.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2025

At an atomic level, 2D slices of solid materials can be thought of as giant checkerboards in which the pieces are electrons and the vacant spaces are “holes,” which behave like positively charged electrons.

From Science Magazine ● Dec. 20, 2023

On any given afternoon at Reclaim Clay, which Wilson and Matsuo started in a former fortune cookie factory, studio members might lounge around, joking while carving stripes into mugs or painting checkerboards on vases.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 5, 2023

Not being versed in heraldic lore I may say briefly that the shield bore checkerboards and conventionalized lilies in alternate quarterings, while the crest was a mailed arm holding a burning torch or cresset.

From In Jeopardy by Sutphen, Van Tassel

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