Chess. [f. STALEMATE sb.] trans. To subject to a stalemate.
1765. Lambe, Hist. Chess, 91. In this case the King who is stalemated wins the game.
1813. Sarratt, Wks. Damiano, etc. 235. White cannot take the Rook without stalemating his adversary.
1879. Meredith, Egoist, xlvii. At the game of Chess it is the dishonour of our adversary when we are stale-mated.
fig. 1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xli. You never saw a fellow look more puzzled, I had regularly stale-mated him.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., I. xii. He spoke rather sulkily, feeling himself stalemated.
1910. Edin. Rev., Jan., 65. Pitt undertook to stalemate the French fleet.
Hence Stalemated ppl. a.
1903. H. J. R. Murray, in Brit. Chess. Mag., 282. Here [in Indian Rule] then we have the earliest convention: the stalemated King wins.
