Word.ws English Dictionary

checkmates

checkmates is the plural of checkmate.

checkmates is the third-person singular simple present indicative of checkmate.

Meaning of checkmate

Noun

checkmate (countable and uncountable, plural checkmates)

  1. The conclusive victory in a game of chess that occurs when an opponent's king is threatened with unavoidable capture.
    • This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 10
  2. (broadly, figuratively) Any losing situation with no escape; utter defeat.

See all 6 meanings of checkmate

Questions about checkmates

What is checkmates the plural of?
Checkmates is the plural of checkmate.

Words near checkmates in the dictionary

  1. checkmarks
  2. checkmate
  3. checkmated
  4. checkmater
  5. checkmaters
  6. checkmates
  7. checkmating
  8. checkmen
  9. checkoff
  10. checkoffs
  11. checkout

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: checkmates (page history and authors); checkmate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “checkmates.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/checkmates. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.