gambit
/ˈɡæmbɪt/
gambit noun: an opening in chess in which material is sacrificed to gain an advantage.
Noun
gambit (plural gambits)
- An opening in chess in which material is sacrificed to gain an advantage.
- Her clever gambit gave her an advantage.
- Any ploy or stratagem.
- Their promise to lower taxes is clearly an election-year gambit.
- The Red Holocaust is best interpreted in this light as the bitter fruit of an^([sic]) utopian gambit that was socially misengineered into a dystopic nightmare by despots in humanitarian disguise.2009, Steven Rosefielde, Red Holocaust, page 240
- A remark intended to open a conversation.
Verb
gambit (third-person singular simple present gambits, present participle gambiting, simple past and past participle gambited)
gambit meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
gambit in Tamil
- chess move
- பலியாட்டம் paliyāṭṭam
gambit in Urdu
- چال, کوئی عمل
gambit in Bengali
- দাবার চাল, কৌশলী পদক্ষেপ
gambit in Malayalam
- ചർച്ചയുടെ പ്രാരംഭവാദം, പ്രലോഭനം, കെണി, കൗശലപൂർവ്വമായ പ്രാരംഭനീക്കം
More languagesFewer languages
- gambit in Arabic
- غَامْبِت ḡāmbit, جَامْبِت gāmbit
- gambit in Persian
- گامبی gâmbi
Forms of gambit
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | gambits |
| alternative form (obsolete) | gambett |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | gambits |
| present participle | gambiting |
| past participle | gambited |
| past | gambited |
Origin of gambit
Borrowed from Italian gambetto (“act of tripping; gambit”), from gamba (“leg”) + -etto (diminutive suffix). First attested in 1656.
Words formed from gambit
- Botez gambit
- countergambit
- Evans Gambit
- Galileo gambit
- Kings's Gambit
- Queen's Gambit
- Queen's Gambit Declined
- Stafford gambit
- Tennison Gambit
- Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit
- Xanatos gambit
Phrases with gambit
Words that rhyme with gambit
Questions about gambit
- What does gambit mean?
- Gambit means an opening in chess in which material is sacrificed to gain an advantage.
- What is gambit in Tamil?
- Gambit in Tamil is பலியாட்டம் (paliyāṭṭam). See Gambit meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is gambit?
- Gambit can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce gambit?
- Gambit is pronounced /ˈɡæmbɪt/ (US).
- What is the plural of gambit?
- The plural of gambit is gambits.
Words near gambit in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gambit (page history and authors); gambit (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Gambit (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gambit (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-gambit.ogg.
Cite this entry: “gambit.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gambit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.