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Don’t let the similarities of sound and general flavor between gambit and gamble trip you up; the two words are unrelated. Gambit first appeared in English in a 1656 chess handbook that was said to feature almost a hundred illustrated gambetts. Gambett traces back first to the Spanish word gambito, and before that to the Italian gambetto, from gamba meaning “leg.” Gambetto referred to the act of tripping someone, as in wrestling, in order to gain an advantage. In chess, gambit (or gambett, as it was once spelled) originally referred to a chess opening whereby the bishop’s pawn is intentionally sacrificed—or tripped—to gain an advantage in position. Gambit is now applied to many other chess openings, but after being pinned down for years, it also finally broke free of chess’s hold and is used generally to refer to any “move,” whether literal or rhetorical, done to get a leg up, so to speak. While such moves can be risky, gambit is not synonymous with gamble, which likely comes from Old English gamen, meaning “amusement, jest, pastime”—source too of game.
Examples of gambit in a Sentence
Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 22 June 2025
President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s effort to decapitate the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
—Aamer Madhani, Christian Science Monitor, 22 June 2025
President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to decapitate the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
—Aamer Madhani, Chicago Tribune, 21 June 2025
The gambit tied up the case in pretrial proceedings for years, only for the Biden-era Justice Department to drop the effort in 2023.
—Zach Schonfeld, The Hill, 18 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for gambit
Cite this Entry
“Gambit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gambit. Accessed 28 Jun. 2025.
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