check

Verb

Middle English cheken, checken "to put an opponent's king in check, stop, block," probably derivative of chek, chekke "announcement in chess that an opponent's king is in check, assault, adverse event" — more at check entry 2

Note: A French source is possible but uncertain. In the Oxford English Dictionary, first edition, the etymology of this verb cites "Old French eschequier, eschecquer" and "Old Northern French eskekier," without specification of sources. A form eskieka occurs in the Picard version (manuscript P) of the Old French narrative poem Guillaume d'Angleterre, but the meaning is not clear. Dictionnaire du Moyen Français has a verb eschequer with the meanings "go off, go away" (déguerpir) and "avoid, avert" (éviter) that appears to have no relation to chess.

Noun

Middle English chek, chekke "announcement in chess that an opponent's king is in check, assault, act, feat, incident, adverse event, checkered design in heraldry," borrowed from Anglo-French eschec "situation of being in check in chess, (in plural escheks, eschez "game of chess"), going back to continental Old French eschés "chess pieces," earlier eschac, plural eschas, borrowed from Arabic šāh "king in chess," borrowed from Persian, "king in chess, king," going back to Middle Persian, going back to Old Persian xšāyaθiyā "king, sovereign," derivative from the verbal base xšāy- "rule, have power, possess," going back to dialectal Indo-European *tkeH-, whence also Avestan xšaiiaθā "you (plural) have power," Sanskrit kṣáyati "(s/he) rules, possesses"

Note: The older senses in approximate historical order are 8, 4, 5, 3, 11. Sense 1 is a derivative of the verb check entry 1, sense 1. Sense 2 developed from the earlier use of check to refer to the counterfoil of a bank draft, meant to be a restraint on forgery. Senses 6a and b (the former an Americanism) appear to have developed from this sense. Sense 9 is perhaps short for checker entry 1. — In Old French the initial \sh\ ([ʃ]) of the Arabic word—whether borrowed directly or through mediation (Spanish jaque?)—is reflected as \ch\ ([tʃ]) preceded by an epenthetic vowel; it hence joins words with initial [sk] either inherited from Latin or taken from Frankish (Old Low Franconian) at an earlier date. The change of vowel (eschac > eschec) may be owed to association with homonymous Old French eschec "booty, plunder," of Frankish origin, or, alternatively, simple assimilation to words in which historical <a> was regularly raised to <e>. — The Indo-Iranian verb traced here to *tkeH- has traditionally been compared to Greek ktáomai, ktâsthai "to get, obtain, acquire," ktêsis "acquisition, possession," etc., though the lack of harmony in the formations is problematic. Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2. Auflage (Wiesbaden, 2001) attributes ktáomai to a denominal derivative of a noun *tk-eh₂ "obtainment, acquisition," and sees a completely different origin for xšāy- (ultimately from the verbal base *h₃eku̯- "catch sight of, envisage").

Interjection

derivative of check entry 2