Obs. or dial. Also 7 chacke-. [Of uncertain origin: the dial. synonym checkers appears to show connection with CHECK sb.1; this is strengthened by the occasional use of chess, chesses, for tesseræ, also for ἀστράγαλοι or ankle-bones, used as dice, and also in the game of ‘dibs’ or ‘knuckle-bones’: perhaps the stones were substituted for the bones, and named from them. In Scotl. called chucks or chuckie-stones.]
A small smooth round pebble; a children’s game played with these. Also fig.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xviii. 287. Yoong children, which set al their felicitie in Checkstones and pins.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, 44. Shee [Hero] dreamed that Leander and shee were playing at checkestone with pearles in the bottome of the sea.
1611. Cotgr., Cailleteau, a chackestone, or little flint stone.
1624. F. White, Repl. Fisher, 389. Romists … in their Checkstone trickes of beades.
1646. G. Daniel, Wks. (1878), I. 11. Some At Check-stones play’d, or Cherry-pit.
1666–7. Denham, Direct. Paint., I. xviii. But for triumphant Check-stones if, and shell For Dutchess Closet, ’t hath succeeded well.
1883. Easther, Gloss. of Almondb. & Huddersf. Checkstone … a game played by children, similar to the dibs of the south and the talus of the Romans. [See full account.]
