1913: Tables and Boardgames Mar 11, 2020

It wouldn't be very useful if every board game had the same name, but for a lot of history this was the case, sort of. A good number of games have the word 'table' in their name, or indeed as the whole of their name, as least in Germanic cultures. Germanic games such as with 'hnefatafl' otherwise known as 'tablut' see names—both, in this case—deriving from 'table'; in the former word, the other element refers to the king, or more literally 'fist'. In Scandinavian languages as well, chess was called 'Skáktafl', and a few others took this pattern as well. In English too, up through the 17th century, 'backgammon' was called 'tables'. All of this is because 'tafl' can mean both 'table' but also 'board', and in the past there would simply have been fewer board games known.

Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts