stalemate

English

Etymology

From stale +‎ mate.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈsteɪlmeɪt/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

stalemate (countable and uncountable, plural stalemates)

  1. (chess) The state in which the player to move is not in check but has no legal moves, resulting in a draw.
    • 2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE‎[1], page 10:
      The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal move and his/her king is not in check. The game is said to end in ‘stalemate’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the stalemate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.
  2. (by extension) Any situation that has no obvious possible movement, but involves no personal loss.
    • 2020 September 8, Jeffrey Gettleman, “Shots Fired Along India-China Border for First Time in Years”, in The New York Times‎[2], →ISSN, archived from the original on 8 September 2020:
      Indian military analysts said the situation was heading into a dangerous stalemate. Neither side wants to start a war. But neither side wants to back down either.
  3. Any kind of match in which neither contestant laid claim to victory; a draw.

Translations

Verb

stalemate (third-person singular simple present stalemates, present participle stalemating, simple past and past participle stalemated)

  1. (chess, transitive) To bring about a state in which the player to move is not in check but has no legal moves.
  2. (transitive, figuratively) To bring about a stalemate, in which no advance in an argument is achieved.
    • 2012 February 29, Aidan Foster-Carter, “North Korea: The denuclearisation dance resumes”, in BBC News‎[3], archived from the original on 24 April 2025:
      The North Korean nuclear issue, stalemated for the past three years, is now back in play again—not before time.
    • 2024 March 18, Dan Sabbagh, “Volkov attack signals Russia’s return to cold war-era spying in Europe”, in The Guardian‎[4], →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 April 2025:
      But with the war also still largely stalemated, other theatres of conflict have become more important. In Russia’s case, that includes the secret domain.

See also

Anagrams

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