nine men's morris
nine men's morris noun: an ancient strategic board game for two players, each having nine pieces, and in which forming a row of three of one's own pieces earns the removal of one of the other player's pieces.
Noun
nine men's morris (uncountable)
- An ancient strategic board game for two players, each having nine pieces, and in which forming a row of three of one's own pieces earns the removal of one of the other player's pieces.
- The nine mens Morris is fild vp with mud, / And the queint Mazes in the wanton greene,c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
Origin of nine men's morris
Popularly claimed to ultimately be from Latin merellus (“gamepiece (incl. in draughts), token, etc.”); a possible connection has also been linked to French marelle (“hopscotch”).
Questions about nine men's morris
- What does nine men's morris mean?
- Nine men's morris means an ancient strategic board game for two players, each having nine pieces, and in which forming a row of three of one's own pieces earns the removal of one of the other player's pieces.
- What part of speech is nine men's morris?
- Nine men's morris is a noun.
Words near nine men's morris in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nine men's morris (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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