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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
Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News, 18 June 2026
His most successful gambit was the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, the fight held in Kinshasa in 1974 between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.
—Nick Miller, New York Times, 17 June 2026
That gambit ended with a whimper on Friday when the court ordered Baldoni to pay Lively’s legal fees but rejected her bid for damages.
—Winston Cho, HollywoodReporter, 15 June 2026
If the city’s gambit to buy the Knox-Goodrich building from Urban Catalyst unfolds, the real estate firm would be obliged to complete a permit process by the end of 2026 on the eight-story Gifford Apartments on the western edge of downtown San Jose.
—George Avalos, Mercury News, 15 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for gambit
Cite this Entry
“Gambit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gambit. Accessed 20 Jun. 2026.
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