Also in 7 baggammon. [Apparently = back-game, back-play (ME. gamen game, play, still in 15th c.), ‘because the pieces are (in certain circumstances) taken up and obliged to go back, that is re-enter at the table.’ Always called TABLES till the 17th c. Compare the prec. word; also the following early mention of tables along with dice, as a kucade gemen (Kentish for gamen), a wicked gamen or game.
1340. Ayenb., 45. Kueade gemenes, ase byeþ þe gemenes of des, and of tables.
(The unsatisfactory point is the want of 16th-c. quotations for gamen, which may however have survived dialectally. Cf. also the analogous after-game in ‘after-game at Irish,’ a game of similar nature. For other suggestions as to derivation, see Wedgwood, and Skeat.)]
1. A game played on a board consisting of two tables (usually united by a hinge), with draughtmen whose moves are determined by throws of the dice.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), II. 105. Though you have learnt to play at Baggammon, you must not forget Irish, which is a more serious and solid game.
1676. D’Urfey, Mad. Fickle, I. i. I won 300 guineys of him t’other night at Back-gammon.
1678. Butler, Hud., III. II. 1062. The Hangman, Was like to lurch you at Back-Gammon.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 142. And play at billiards, cards, or back-gammon.
1814. Scott, in Lockhart, Life (1839), IV. 355. In the evening Backgammon and cards are in great request.
2. spec. (See quot.)
1883. Boys’ Own Bk., 620. There are three kinds of victory—one the winning the hit, the second the winning the gammon, and the third winning a backgammon.… If the winner has borne all his men off before the loser has carried all his men to his own table, it is a backgammon, and held equal to three hits or games.
3. attrib., as in backgammon board, table.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, II. 371. A backgammon table preserved behind the high altar.
1820. Byron, Juan, V. x. Like a backgammon board the place was dotted With whites and blacks.
