Welcome to Wondrous Words Wednesday, an awesome meme for boosting your vocabulary! To find more interesting words, visit Kathy at bermudaonion.net!
My entry today comes from Pastor Alistair Begg, who was speaking at Camp of the Woods when I vacationed there. In his lesson on the Gospels, Mr. Begg said that Nicodemus used an “opening gambit” to draw Jesus into a conversation.
Surely I was the only nerd in the audience pulling up her dictionary app to look up gambit!
gambit \’gam- bət\ noun, from Italian gambetto, the act of tripping someone, meaning:
- a chess opening in which a player risks one or more minor pieces to gain an advantage in position
- a remark intended to start a conversation
- a calculated move
Clearly, Mr. Begg was referring to definition #2, but #3 sounds much more fun.
The journalist used the interview with Mr. Prescott as a gambit to obtain access to his impressive collection of luxury sports cars.
Word Nerd Note
In 2012, Colin Firth starred in the movie Gambit as a disgruntled employee who tries to con his abusive boss. (I’ve never heard of it, have you?) Also, Gambit is the name of a Marvel Comic Book Superhero who can mentally control kinetic energy and excels at card throwing and hand to hand combat.
Word Nerd Workout
Think of a synonym for gambit. My example: ploy. Another great example, and one of my favorite words: shenanigan. Now it’s your turn! Leave your ideas in the comments, and thanks for getting nerdy with me today!
Julia
Number one is what I use a lot–Icelandic gambit, Portuguese gambit, Danish gambit, Queen’s gambit, Scotch gambit, King’s gambit, elephant gambit.
Cool! Thanks for “playing”.
Never heard of it!
Ohhh, I love the word ‘shenanigan!’ I looked up gambit on the trusty M-W web site, and they have ‘flim flam’ as a synonym! No way I can top that!
A synonym might be “ruse,” although it has a shadier connotation. A gambit or ploy might be sincere in its own right, even if it is calculated to get something else.
But a ruse entails deception which is calculated to get something.
Hi Julia,
I know of each of your definitions for ‘gambit’, however I would probably most associate the word with, ‘the opening gambit’ in a chess game, or maybe some other gambling games.
I was going to go with ‘maneuvre’ as an alternative word, but Kathy beat me to it. Would ‘strategy’ work do you think?
Thanks for the fun post,
Yvonne
I think “strategy” would definitely work. Thanks for “playing”.
The word looks familiar, but I had no idea of the meaning. Thanks.
The only definition of gambit I was familiar with is a calculated move. I think maneuver might work as a synonym for that definition.
Sounds good to me Kathy!