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definitions

checker

1
[chek-er]
noun
  1. a small, usually red or black disk of plastic or wood, used in playing checkers.
  2. checkers,
    1. Also called, British, draughts.(used with a singular verb)a game played by two persons, each with 12 playing pieces, on a checkerboard.
    2. (in a regenerative furnace) loosely stacked brickwork through which furnace gases and incoming air are passed in turn, so that the heat of the exhaust is absorbed and later transferred to the incoming air.
  3. a checkered pattern.
  4. one of the squares of a checkered pattern.
verb (used with object)
  1. to mark like a checkerboard.
  2. to diversify in color; variegate.
  3. to diversify in character; subject to alternations: Sorrow and joy have checkered his life.
Also British, che·quer.

Origin of checker

1
1250–1300; Middle English checker chessboard < Anglo-French escheker (by aphesis), equivalent to eschec check1 + -er -er2
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for chequers

Contemporary Examples of chequers

Historical Examples of chequers

  • Fid-fad, a game similar to chequers, or drafts, played in the West of England.

    The Slang Dictionary

    John Camden Hotten

  • Chequers should be avoided unless they express a meaning, as in Scotch tartans.

    Needlework As Art

    Marian Alford

  • Often it was seat, coffer, and table in one, with chequers inlaid on the top for chess.

  • It would appear that Sir Anthony was a gentleman of some standing at the Chequers.

    The Black Moth

    Georgette Heyer

  • The evening passes among the old people, with chequers and back-gammon.

British Dictionary definitions for chequers

chequers

noun
  1. (functioning as singular) another name for draughts

Chequers

noun
  1. an estate and country house in S England, in central Buckinghamshire: the official country residence of the British prime minister

checker

1
noun, verb
  1. the usual US spelling of chequer
noun
  1. textiles a variant spelling of chequer (def. 2)
  2. US and Canadian any one of the 12 flat thick discs used by each player in the game of checkersAlso called (in Britain and certain other countries): draughtsman

checker

2
noun mainly US and Canadian
  1. a cashier, esp in a supermarket
  2. an attendant in a cloakroom, left-luggage office, etc
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for chequers

checker

n.1

mid-13c., "game of chess (or checkers);" c.1300, "a chessboard, board with 64 squares for playing chess or similar games; a set of chessmen" a shortening of Old French eschequier "chessboard; a game of chess," from Medieval Latin scaccarium (see check (n.)).

Meaning "pattern of squares" is late 14c. Meaning "a man or marker in the game of checkers" is from 1864. British prefers chequer. From late 14c. as "a checked design." The word had earlier senses of "table covered with checked cloth for counting" (late 12c. in Anglo-Latin), a sense also in Old French (see checker (n.2)).

checker

v.

"to ornament with a checked or chackered design," late 14c. (implied in checkered), from Old French eschequeré and from checker (n.1). Related: Checkering.

checker

n.2

"table covered with a checked cloth," specialized sense of checker (n.1), late 14c. (in Anglo-Latin from c.1300); especially a table for counting money or keeping accounts (revenue reckoned with counters); later extended to "the fiscal department of the English Crown; the Exchequer (mid-14c.; in Anglo-Latin from late 12c.).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper