"Check (pattern) A check (also checker, Brit: chequer) is a pattern of modified stripes consisting of crossed horizontal and vertical lines forming squares. The word is derived from the ancient Persian language word ""shah"", meaning ""king"", from the oriental game of chess, played on a squared board, particularly from the expression ""shah mat"", ""the king is dead"", in modern chess parlance ""check-mate"". The word entered the French language as ""echec"" in the 11th century, thence into English. Buffalo check or buffalo plaid has black hashes on a red background. In the United States, it got this name around 1850 when"
"Etymological Dictionary, an alteration of the Persian phrase ""shāh māt"" () which means, literally, ""the King is helpless"". Persian ""māt"" applies to the king but in Sanskrit ""māta"", also pronounced ""māt"", applied to his kingdom ""traversed, measured across, and meted out"" thoroughly by his opponent; ""māta"" is the past participle of ""mā"" verbal root. Others maintain that it means ""the King is dead"", as chess reached Europe via the Islamic world, and Arabic ""māta"" () means ""died"" or ""is dead"". However, in Pashto (an Iranic language), the word ""māt"" () still exists, meaning ""destroyed, broken"". Moghadam traced the etymology of"
"the word ""mate"". It comes from a Persian verb ""mandan"" (), meaning ""to remain"", which is cognate with the Latin word and the Greek ""menō"" (, which means ""I remain""). It means ""remained"" in the sense of ""abandoned"" and the formal translation is ""surprised"", in the military sense of ""ambushed"". sheikh () is the arabic word for the monarch. Players would announce ""Sheikh"" when the king was in check. ""Māt"" () is a arabic adjective for dead ""helpless"", or ""defeated"". So the king is in ""mate"" when he is ambushed, at a loss, helpless, defeated, or abandoned to his fate."
"In modern Arabic, the word ""mate"" depicts a person who has died open-mouthed, staring, confused and unresponsive. The words ""stupefied"" or ""stunned"" bear close correlation. So a possible alternative would be to interpret ""mate"" as ""unable to respond"". A king is ""mate"" (sheikh-mat) then means a king is unable to respond, which would correspond to there being no response that a player's king can make to their opponent's final move. This interpretation is much closer to the original intent of the game being not to kill a king but to leave him with no viable response other than surrender, which"
"Ring of Shah Maran, A Story from the Mountains of Kurdistan"" by Raphael Emmanuel tells the folk story of a boy that shares bread with animals and earns the respect of Shahmaran. Shahmaran Shahmaran (; , , , ) or ਸੱਪ ਦੇ ਸ਼ਾਹ Punjabi; ""Sapa dē Shaha',"" is a mythical creature in Iran, Anatolia, India and Iraq. The name of Shahmaran comes from Persian words ""Shah"" and ""Maran"". Shah is the title for a king, primarily the leader of the Iranians and their land and ""mar"" means snake. In plural ""Mar-an"" means snakes. Shahmaran is known as the queen of"
"Shah Shah (; , pronounced , ""king"") is a title given to the emperors, kings, princes and lords of Iran (historically also known as Persia). It was also adopted by the kings of Shirvan (a historical Iranian region in Transcaucasia) namely the Shirvanshahs, the rulers and offspring of the Ottoman Empire (in that context spelled as ""Şah"" and ""Şeh""), Mughal emperors of the Indian Subcontinent, the Bengal Sultanate, as well as in Afghanistan. In Iran (Persia and Greater Persia) the title was continuously used; rather than King in the European sense, each Persian ruler regarded himself as the ""Šāhanšāh"" (King"
"of Kings) or Emperor of the Persian Empire. The word descends from Old Persian ""xšāyaθiya"" ""king"", which (for reasons of historical phonology) must be a borrowing from Median, and is derived from the same root as Avestan ""xšaϑra-"", ""power"" and ""command"", corresponding to Sanskrit (Old Indic) ""kṣatra-"" (same meaning), from which ""kṣatriya-"", ""warrior"", is derived. The full, Old Persian title of the Achaemenid rulers of the First Persian Empire was ""Xšāyathiya Xšāyathiyānām"" or ""Šāhe Šāhān"", ""King of Kings"" or ""Emperor"". ""Šāh"", or ""Šāhanšāh"" (King of Kings) to use the full-length term, was the title of the Persian emperors. It includes"
"better matches the origin story detailed in the Shahnameh. In modern parlance, the term ""checkmate"" is a metaphor for an irrefutable and strategic victory. In early Sanskrit chess ( 500–700), the king could be and this ended the game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing ""check"" in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be"
"by another king, whose name is unknown. Khushnavaz Khushnavaz (also spelled Khush-Newaz; Sogdian: Əxšāwan’ār; Middle Persian: Xašnawāz), also known as Akhshunwar, was a Hephthalite king who ruled in Tokharistan. At the zenith of his power, he ruled an empire stretching from Gorgan in the west, to Balkh in the east. The word ""Khushnavaz"" is of Sogdian origin and means ""king""—it was used both as a title and name. Khushnavaz is first mentioned in 457, when the Sasanian king Yazdegerd II died. After his death, his youngest son Hormizd III seized the throne in the absence of his elder brother Peroz"
"the Parthians. Georgian title ""mephet'mephe"" has the same meaning. The last ""shahanshah"" (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) was ousted in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution. ""Shahanshah"" is usually translated as ""king of kings"" or simply ""king"" for ancient rulers of the Achaemenid, Arsacid, and Sassanid dynasties, and often shortened to ""shah"" for rulers since the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century. Iranian rulers were typically regarded in the West as emperors. The Sanskrit word for emperor is ""Samrāj"" or Samraat or ""Chakravartin"". This word has been used as an epithet of various Vedic deities, like Varuna, and has been attested in the"
"enjoyed this style. Shah Shah (; , pronounced , ""king"") is a title given to the emperors, kings, princes and lords of Iran (historically also known as Persia). It was also adopted by the kings of Shirvan (a historical Iranian region in Transcaucasia) namely the Shirvanshahs, the rulers and offspring of the Ottoman Empire (in that context spelled as ""Şah"" and ""Şeh""), Mughal emperors of the Indian Subcontinent, the Bengal Sultanate, as well as in Afghanistan. In Iran (Persia and Greater Persia) the title was continuously used; rather than King in the European sense, each Persian ruler regarded himself as"
"elephantry, and chariotry. These forms are represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively. Chess was introduced to Persia from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility. In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became ""chatrang"", which subsequently evolved to ""shatranj"", due to Arab Muslims' lack of ""ch"" and ""ng"" native sounds, and the rules were developed further. Players started calling ""Shāh!"" (Persian for ""King!"") when attacking the opponent's king, and ""Shāh Māt!"" (Persian for ""the king is helpless"" – see checkmate) when the king"
"Spahbed Spāhbed (; also spelled spahbod and spahbad, early form spāhpat) is a Middle Persian title meaning ""army chief"" used chiefly in the Sasanian Empire. Originally there was a single ""spāhbed"", called the , who functioned as the generalissimo of the Sasanian army. From the time of Khosrow I ( 531–579) on, the office was split in four, with a ""spāhbed"" for each of the cardinal directions. After the Muslim conquest of Persia, the ""spāhbed"" of the East managed to retain his authority over the inaccessible mountainous region of Tabaristan on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, where the"
"known in Armenian as ""čatrak"" (ճատրակ), from Middle Persian ""chatrang"". Today, that term—pronounced ""jadrag""—is only used in Western Armenian, which is spoken in the Armenian diaspora. In modern Eastern Armenian, which is the variation of Armenian used in the Republic of Armenia, chess is known as ""šaxmat"" . It is derived from Russian ""šáxmaty"" (шахматы), itself a derivative from Persian ""šâh mât"" (), literally meaning ""the king is at a loss."" In ""Shatrang: The Book of Chess"" (1936), orientalists Joseph Orbeli and Kamilla Trever suggest that chess was known in Armenia since at least the 9th century, when Armenia was"
"Matan (given name) Matan (alternative spelling: Mattan, , ) is a Hebrew name, mostly for males, coming from the word 'gift' and literally means ""giving"". It is part of the title of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot that is also known as ""Z'man Mattan Torah"" meaning the ""time [of the] giving [of the] Torah."" A biblical reference for a Mattan as a given name is the story told in Books of Kings about the Baal priest Mattan, killed by the people of the Kingdom of Judah during a revolution. In the Gospel of Matthew, Matthan is the paternal grandfather of"
"Greek, this phrase was translated as (""basileus tōn basiléōn""), ""King of Kings"", equivalent to ""Emperor"". Both terms were often shortened to their roots ""shah"" and ""basileus"". In Western languages, ""Shah"" is often used as an imprecise rendering of ""Šāhanšāh"". The term was first recorded in English in 1564 as a title for the King of Persia and with the spelling ""Shaw"". For a long time, Europeans thought of ""Shah"" as a particular royal title rather than an imperial one, although the monarchs of Persia regarded themselves as emperors of the Persian Empire (later the Empire of Iran). The European opinion"
"Khushnavaz Khushnavaz (also spelled Khush-Newaz; Sogdian: Əxšāwan’ār; Middle Persian: Xašnawāz), also known as Akhshunwar, was a Hephthalite king who ruled in Tokharistan. At the zenith of his power, he ruled an empire stretching from Gorgan in the west, to Balkh in the east. The word ""Khushnavaz"" is of Sogdian origin and means ""king""—it was used both as a title and name. Khushnavaz is first mentioned in 457, when the Sasanian king Yazdegerd II died. After his death, his youngest son Hormizd III seized the throne in the absence of his elder brother Peroz I who was serving as governor of"
"King of Kings (Old Persian: ""Xšâyathiya Xšâyathiyânâm"") was one of the titles borne by Cyrus the Great, and later all other Achaemenid kings, who were in fact ruling over provincial governors, the satraps. The Persian usage also appears in Ezra 7:12 in reference to Artaxerxes I. The Old Persian title was evolved into Middle Persian ""shâhân shâh"", and later into New Persian ""shâhanshâh"" (; ) The Middle Persian word was used by the kings of Sassanian Empire, who were indeed the ruler of the many feudal kings in Persia. The New Persian word was later revived by some Islamic dynasties"
"Romans. Single combats have been narrated in ""Shahnama"" of Ferdowsi, a notable example being those of the story of Davazdah Rokh (Twelve Combats). Mard o mard Mard ō mard (Middle Persian: ""Mard ud-mard"", literally ""man to man"") was an ancient Iranian tradition of single combat, the Sasanian Empire being most known for using it. During a battle, the Sasanian troops would use taunts and war cries to provoke the enemy into a single duel with a Sasanian champion. The tradition meant much to the Sasanians—in 421, during the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422, a champion of Bahram V (r. 420–438) was"
"Zabulistan. The name Sām is equivalent to the Avestan name 'Saama', which means ""dark"" and Sanskrit 'Shyaama' which means the same. Sām Sām (سام), also transliterated Saam, is a mythical hero of ancient Persia, and an important character in the Shahnameh epic. He was the son of Nariman, grandson of Garshasp and father to Zāl. He was Iran's champion during the rule of Fereydun, Manuchehr and Nowzar. He was appointed by Manuchehr to rule Zabulistan (Sistan), and then Mazandaran. After Manuchehr, because of Nowzar's corrupted and failed rulership, Iranian champions asked Sām to rule Iran. Sām didn't accept, he supported"
"meaning king , the plural suffix -an () , and the word dasht (), meaning field , and hence it literally translates as ""field of the kings"" in Persian. Shahandasht Shahan Dasht (, also Romanized as Shāhān Dasht or Shahandasht), locally known as Shoon Dasht (), is a village in Bala Larijan Rural District, Larijan District, Amol County, Mazandaran Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 21, in 9 families. During the summer, the population increases, since many city dwellers from Amol stay in Shahandasht as their summer residence. The Shahan Dasht waterfall is a natural attraction of"
"King of Battle The King of Battle, or šar tamḫāri, is an ancient Mesopotamian epic tale of Sargon of Akkad and his campaign against the city of Purušḫanda in the Anatolian highlands and its king, Nur-Daggal or Nur-Dagan, in aid of his merchants. It is extant in five manuscripts, two from Amarna in Egypt and six fragments of one from the Hittite capital Ḫattuša from the middle Babylonian period and one each from Aššur and Nineveh, probably from the Neo-Assyrian period. Of the twenty-three tales composed of the Kings of Akkad, this was one of only three, along with the"
"poem uses the Persian term ""Shāh māt"" (check mate) to describe the fate of Talhand. The philosopher and theologian Al-Ghazali mentions chess in ""The Alchemy of Happiness"" (c. 1100). He uses it as a specific example of a habit that may cloud a person's good disposition: The appearance of the chess pieces had altered greatly since the times of chaturanga, with ornate pieces and chess pieces depicting animals giving way to abstract shapes. This is because of a Muslim ban on the game’s lifelike pieces, as they were said to have brought upon images of idolatry. The Islamic sets of"
"Muslim triumph over Iran as compared to the only partial defeat of the Roman empire, the Muslims borrowed far more from the vanished Sassanian state than they ever did from the Romans. However, for the Persians the defeat remained bitter. Some 400 years later, the Persian poet Ferdowsi wrote in his popular poem ""Shahnameh"" (""Book of Kings""): ""Damn this world, damn this time, damn this fate, That uncivilized Arabs have come to, Make me a Muslim, Where are your valiant warriors and priests, Where are your hunting parties and your feats?, Where is that warlike mien and where are those,"
"of ""Shahanshah"" (or ""King of Kings""). The last Iranian Shahanshah was King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was forced to abdicate the throne as a result of a revolution in Iran. In fact Persian (Iranian) kingdom goes back to about 2,700 BC (see List of Kings of Persia), but reached its ultimate height and glory when King Cyrus the Great (Known as ""The Great Kourosh"" in Iran) started the Achaemenid dynasty, and under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much of Central"
"the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya. In ""Destiny"" Blaze is ""King of Kings"". King of Kings The phrase King of Kings (Assyrian """", Hebrew ""melek mĕlakîm"", , ""Basileus Basileōn"") is a superlative expression for ""great king"" or high king; it is probably originally of Semitic origins (compare the superlatives Lord of Lords, Song of Songs or Holy of Holies), but from there was also adopted in Persian (""Shahanshah""), Hellenistic and Christian traditions. Ancient Indian hegemonic monarchs uses variations of the title ""rajadhiraja"" , literally ""king of kings"" The first king known to use the title ""king of kings"" ("""")"
"come out to help the ""shahinshah"". However, the Persians suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in 636. Little is known about the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah other than it lasted for several days by the banks of the river Euphrates in what is now Iraq and ended with the Persian force being annihilated. Abolishing the Lakhmid Arab buffer state had forced the Persians to take over the desert defense themselves, leaving them overextended. As a result of al-Qadisiyyah, the Arab-Muslims gained control over the whole of Iraq, including Ctesiphon, the capital city of the Sassanids. The Persians lacked"
"to the ""Oxford Online Dictionary"", the word has its origins in the mid-17th century, and was formed as a result of the combination of the Pahlavi words ""pati-"" ""lord"", and shah. According to Josef W. Meri and Jere L. Bacharach, the word is ""more than likely derived from the Persian Padishah"". The same view is held by Nicholas Ostler, who mentions that the word was formed as a shortening of the Persian word Padishah. According to etymologist Sevan Nişanyan, the word is derived from Turkish ""beşe"" ('boy, prince'), which is cognate with Persian ""baççe"" (). Old Turkish had no fixed"
"is now Afghanistan, indicates a weakening of the power of the ""Shahinshah"" (King of Kings), suggesting the empire was already breaking down at the time of the Muslim conquest. Persian society was rigidly divided into castes with the nobility being of supposed ""Aryan"" descent, and this division of Persian society along caste lines was reflected in the military. The ""azatan"" aristocracy provided the cavalry, the ""paighan"" infantry came from the peasantry and most of the greater Persian nobility had slave soldiers-the latter extensive use of slave soldiers by Muslim rulers was based on the Persian example. Much of the Persian"
"the boar was the animal associated with the Zoroastrian Izad Vahram, the epitome of victory. ""Shahrwarāz"" (Inscriptional Pahlavi: ) is a Middle Persian word, with ""shahr"" meaning ""land, country"" and ""warāz"" meaning ""boar"", which is the epitome of victory in Persian mythology. This word is rendered as ""Shahrbarāz"" () in New Persian. In Armenian sources, he is often referred by the name ""Khoream"" (that is, ""Farrukhān"") and the title ""Razmyozan"" (also spelled ""Razmiozan"", ""Erazmiozan"", ""Razmayuzan""). The title is also mentioned as ""Rasmiozdan"", ""Rasmiozan"" (Georgian), ""rsmysa"" (, reading uncertain), ""Rōmēzān"", ""Rūmīzān"", ""Rumbūzān"" (al-Tabari, ""Tarikh""). Shahrbaraz belonged to the House of Mihran,"
"Padishah Padishah, sometimes rendered as Padeshah or Padshah (, ) is a superlative sovereign title of Persian origin, composed of the Persian ""pād"" ""master"" (or ""pati"" from Old Persian) and the widespread ""shāh"" ""king"". It was adopted by several monarchs claiming the highest rank, roughly equivalent to the ancient Persian notion of ""The Great"" or ""Great King"", and later adopted by post-Achaemenid and Christian Emperors. The rulers on the following thrones – the first two effectively commanding major West Asian empires – were styled Padishah: The paramount prestige of this title, in Islam and even beyond, is clearly apparent from"
"reported in the Persian epic poem, the ""Shahnameh"", from Iran and repeated by several modern authors, the Sasanian king Bahrām V Gōr learned towards the end of his reign (421–39) that the poor could not afford to enjoy music, and he asked the king of India to send him ten thousand ""luris"", lute-playing experts. When the luris arrived, Bahrām gave each one an ox, a donkey, and a donkey-load of wheat so that they could live on agriculture and play music for free for the poor. But the luris ate the oxen and the wheat and came back a year"
"Mard o mard Mard ō mard (Middle Persian: ""Mard ud-mard"", literally ""man to man"") was an ancient Iranian tradition of single combat, the Sasanian Empire being most known for using it. During a battle, the Sasanian troops would use taunts and war cries to provoke the enemy into a single duel with a Sasanian champion. The tradition meant much to the Sasanians—in 421, during the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422, a champion of Bahram V (r. 420–438) was in a single duel killed by a Roman soldier, which made Bahram V accept the war as lost and make peace with the"