Obs. exc. dial. Also 5 ches, 6–7 chesse; pl. 5 ches, 7 chess(e, (chests), (8 chase), 6– chesses.
[Connection with the rows of squares or men on a chess-board has been conjectured. Senses 4 and 5 may not be long here; they are however parallel layers.]
1. One tier or layer above another; a story of a house. Now only dial.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., 27. [Of the ark] thre ches chambre, thay ar welle maide.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (1856), 126. Observe that every board lye direcktly over the board which is layde the nexte chesse beneath it save one.
1877. E. Peacock, N. W. Linc. Gloss. (E. D. S.), They keep ’em on trays, chess aboon chess, like cheney in a cupboard.
2. A row side by side with another. ? Obs.
1534. in E. Peacock, Eng. Ch. Furniture (1866), 198. ij chesses of perle abowte every of them.
1615. W. Lawson, Orch. & Gard., III. vi. (1668), 12. A gutter … set without with three or four chess of thorns.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 87. Three or four Chesse of stones. Ibid., 299. These Bay trees shall be planted in double chesse.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb., Gloss. s.v. In planting quicksets a single chase is a single row: a double chase means another row planted below the first.
† 3. pl. The parallel rows of grains in an ear of corn or grass. Obs.
1562. Turner, Herbal (1568), 72. [Rice] hath comonly an Ear with ij chesses or orders of corn as barley hath.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb., 154. The smutty ears are perfect in the chests. Ibid., 208. The chaff of the chesses is clung.
4. Mil. in pl. The parallel planks of a pontoon-bridge.
1803. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., I. 488. Placing them at proper distances to fit the chesses or planks that cover the bridge.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (1862), 277. By removing the chesses over the gunnels, it may be bent.
1868. Daily Tel., 14 April, 6/3. Into these saddles were dropped the balks of timber which support the ‘chesses,’ or planks of the bridge.
b. Hence Chess man, one whose duty it is to lay the chesses in making a pontoon-bridge.
1853. Sir H. Douglas, Mil. Bridges (ed. 3), 68. Rafts Nos. 5 and 6.—Chess Men.—Nos. 1 of No. 5 Raft will bring up two half Chesses and lay them across the Balks.
5. One of the parallel sections into which an apple, etc., may be divided by cutting from pole to pole; ‘the chess or lith of an orange, one of the divisions of it’ (Jam.). (Sc.)
a. 1800. Popular Rhyme, in Sibbald, Sc. Poet., IV. lix. (Jam.). I’ve a cherry, I’ve a chess; I’ve a bonny blue glass.
