zugzwang
Syllables: zug·zwang/ˈzʌɡ.zwæŋ/
zugzwang noun: a situation in which a player is forced to make a disadvantageous move; a position where any legal move will worsen a player's situation.
Noun
zugzwang (countable and uncountable, plural zugzwangs or zugzwänge)
- A situation in which a player is forced to make a disadvantageous move; a position where any legal move will worsen a player's situation.
- In such a position his condition will get worse step by step until he is forced, by the necessity of making a move, to relax his hold on, or weaken, some key point, and his game collapses. A combination directed to bring about such a catastrophe is called by the Germans Zugzwang (compulsion to...1947, Aron Nimzovich, edited by Fred Reinfeld, My System: A Treatise on Chess, revised edition, New York: David McCay Company, Inc., →ISBN, page 36
- A situation in which someone is forced to make a disadvantageous move.
- An explanation for this phenomenon may be that speech acts that include instructions (e.g., a command or request) show a higher level of activity than speech acts of assertion; the ethnomethodological analysis of conversation speaks of conversational Zugzwänge:²⁴ a request, a question or a command...2002, Carl Friedrich Graumann, Werner Kallmeyer, editors, Perspective and Perspectivation in Discourse, page 174
- Here, too, it is Russia that, ironically, is in Zugzwang. Because the central rationale of Moscow's occupation of Crimea was the defense of supposedly threatened Russians, Putin and his minions must continue insisting that Ukraine's Russians are under threat and that their right are being...2014, Alexander J. Motyl, “PUTIN'S ZUGZWANG: The Russia-Ukraine Standoff”, in World Affairs, volume 177, number 2, page 60
Verb
zugzwang (third-person singular simple present zugzwangs, present participle zugzwanging, simple past and past participle zugzwanged)
Examples of zugzwang in a sentence
- A combination directed to bring about such a catastrophe is called by the Germans Zugzwang (compulsion to move), and the player who succumbs under it is said to have got into Zugzwang.1947, Aron Nimzovich, edited by Fred Reinfeld, My System: A Treatise on Chess, revised edition, New York: David McCay Company, Inc., →ISBN...
- Here, too, it is Russia that, ironically, is in Zugzwang.2014, Alexander J. Motyl, “PUTIN'S ZUGZWANG: The Russia-Ukraine Standoff”, in World Affairs, volume 177, number 2, page 60:
- not only is there a lack of good alternatives concerning some particular policy decisions, but the whole Russian system is moving towards a zugzwang.2015, Veera Laine, Toivo Martikainen, Katri Pynnöniemi, Sinikukka Saari, “Zugzwang in slow motion? The implications of Russia's...
Forms of zugzwang
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | zugzwangs |
| plural | zugzwänge |
| alternative form | Zugzwang |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | zugzwangs |
| present participle | zugzwanging |
| past participle | zugzwanged |
| past | zugzwanged |
Origin of zugzwang
From German Zugzwang, from Zug (“move”) + Zwang (“compulsion”).
Questions about zugzwang
- What does zugzwang mean?
- Zugzwang means a situation in which a player is forced to make a disadvantageous move; a position where any legal move will worsen a player's situation.
- How do you use zugzwang in a sentence?
- A combination directed to bring about such a catastrophe is called by the Germans Zugzwang (compulsion to move), and the player who succumbs under it is said to have got into Zugzwang.
- What part of speech is zugzwang?
- Zugzwang can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce zugzwang?
- Zugzwang is pronounced /ˈzʌɡ.zwæŋ/.
- What is the plural of zugzwang?
- The plural of zugzwang is zugzwangs.
Words near zugzwang in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: zugzwang (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-zugzwang.ogg.
Cite this entry: “zugzwang.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zugzwang. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.