kriegspiel
Americannoun
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(sometimes initial capital letter) a game using small figures and counters that represent troops, ships, etc., played on a map or miniature battlefield, developed for teaching military tactics to officers.
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a form of chess in which both players see only their own pieces on a board in front of them and must remember the opponent's moves as told to them by a referee who maintains a third board on which the play of both players is shown.
noun
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(sometimes capital) a form of war game in which symbols representing military formations are moved about on maps
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a variation of chess in which each player has his own board and men and does not see his opponent's board and men. The moves are regulated by an umpire on a third board out of sight of both players
Etymology
Origin of kriegspiel
1805–15; < German Kriegsspiel, equivalent to Krieg ( e ) s, genitive of Krieg war + Spiel game
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And nowhere was that competitive spirit more apparent than at lunchtime, when the scientists began playing Kriegspiel, a chess variant once favored by the German military.
From Washington Post
This, perhaps, is why German military officers in the 19th Century devised a peculiar board game known as Kriegspiel - or "wargame" - as a training tool.
From BBC
The American newspapers were filled with long, though belated, accounts of the brilliant fighting at Ciudad Rodrigo, Almeida, and Badajoz; and these narratives fired the imagination of Prescott, whose eagerness his companion found infectious, so that the two began to play at battles; not after the usual fashion of boys, but in a manner recalling the Kriegspiel of the military schools of modern Germany.
From Project Gutenberg
A year or so later I read in some newspaper that a fortune awaited the man who could invent something that could be applied to ships as the land Kriegspiel to armies.
From Project Gutenberg
Kriegspiel, krēg′spēl, n. the 'war-game' played with metal blocks on a map, to train officers in military manœuvres.
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
