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chess piece

chess piece

6 2.0
A small object like a pawn or queen used in the game of chess
  • noun
  • /tʃɛs pis/
translation icon : pieza de ajedrez
  • The white chess pieces were arranged neatly on the board before the game began.

It unscrews and inside this chess piece I have a bottle of reactive.

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Examples

  • The chess pieces don't get to decide when the game is over, now, do they?

  • It's a beautifully crafted chess piece in the shape of a horse's head, poise and nobility captured in gleaming stone.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • How do you touch the chess pieces if...?

  • That code probably represents the location of a chess piece.

  • Bishop, the chess piece that moves in a diagonal fashion!

  • Absentmindedly, Vadim set up wooden chess pieces for a mate-in-three.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • And there was Fedora, a female Scaramouche, moving her guests, her chess pieces, about the board—although rather willy-nilly, Hugo thought.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • Fairyland, Isaac's girls call the hillside, and the faraway houses do look like fairy palaces, delicate as chess pieces, exquisitely carved rooks.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • In a game of chess, each player has 16 chess pieces, including pawns and a king.

  • She carefully selected her chess piece and moved it forward two spaces.

Synonyms

piece
vschess piece
495 1.0

An object that belongs to a set, like a chess figure

is the game specific figure rather than a general set item
man
vschess piece
145 7.1

A small piece used in board games like chess or checkers

is specific to one game rather than used across board games
chessman
vschess piece
4.9

A piece each player uses in a chess game, like a pawn or queen

is the general term without specifying the usual number per side

How Valuable

king
26 2.7
queen
27 3.7
rook
12 5.7
chess piece
6 2.0
knight
20 4.2
pawn
29 3.4

Surface Forms

chess piece singular
chess pieces plural

Morphology

chess + piece

The meaning is compositionally derived from 'chess' (the game) + 'piece' (an individual item), so 'chess piece' straightforwardly denotes an individual figure used in chess. This noun-noun compounding is a common, cross-linguistic pattern (e.g., Spanish 'pieza de ajedrez'), making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

Chess piece comes from the small pieces used on a chess board, like the pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen or king. That's why chess piece means any of those game figures.