Gambit

//ˈɡæmbɪt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An opening in chess in which a minor piece or a pawn is sacrificed to gain an advantage.

    "Her clever gambit gave her an advantage."

  2. 2
    a chess move early in the game in which the player sacrifices minor pieces in order to obtain an advantageous position wordnet
  3. 3
    Any ploy or stratagem.

    "Their promise to lower taxes is clearly an election-year gambit."

  4. 4
    a maneuver in a game or conversation wordnet
  5. 5
    A remark intended to open a conversation.
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  1. 6
    an opening remark intended to secure an advantage for the speaker wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To sacrifice (a pawn or minor piece) to gain an advantage. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
ployalphaapproachartartful dodgeartifice

Example

More examples

"Gambit is an opening maneuver in which a pawn is usually offered to gain positional advantage, to break the opponent's central structure or to accelerate the development of pieces."

Etymology

From Italian gambetto (“act of tripping; gambit”), from Italian gamba (“leg”), from Late Latin gamba.

Related phrases

Botez gambitEvans GambitGalileo gambitKings's GambitQueen's GambitQueen's Gambit DeclinedStafford gambitTennison GambitUltimate Boeing 747 gambit

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.