1. A frequent variant spelling of CHEQUER, q.v., in all senses; esp. in U.S.
2. spec. in pl. The game of Draughts. (U.S.)
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, I. 385. They think I go there to play checkers with him.
1888. Amer. Humorist, 5 May, 8/1. In the Social Hall are checkers, chess, dominoes.
b. One of the ‘men’ used in Draughts.
1864. in Webster.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., vi. 88. Out of blocks, thread-spools, cards, and checkers, he will build his pyramid with the gravity of Palladio.
c. Comb. as checker-board, a chess- or draught-board; checker-man = 2 b.
1779. Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 245. They played much at a kind of checker board with glass beads flat on one side.
1883. E. E. Hale, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 278/2. In the dark he had built up a little tower of checkermen and figs combined. Ibid., 280/2. [It] made a mouse-trap from a checker-board.
3. pl. (dial.) Pebbles; = CHECK-STONES.
1877. E. Peacock, N. W. Linc. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Checkers, small stones, pebbles.
1877. Holderness Gloss., Chequers, pebbles…. They were used in the ancient game of merrils or nine men’s morris, in place of the modern pegs, and were moved on the board so as to check the advance of those of the opposite side.
Hence Checkery a. dial., pebble-like: ‘checkery-bits, small lumps of coal’ (N. W. Linc. Gloss.).
Checker v.: see the other spelling CHEQUER.
