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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
Alina Selyukh, NPR, 29 June 2025
But given the billion-dollar stakes and power of the AI industry, Mickey is going to need one hell of a gambit to come out on top (or even alive).
—Maureen Lee Lenker Published, EW.com, 26 June 2025
Trading into the draft from entirely outside of it would be an even more dramatic gambit than what Booth did for DaRon Holmes II.
—Bennett Durando, Denver Post, 24 June 2025
The attack comes just eight months after Israel took out a significant portion of Iran’s air defenses and essentially neutered Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, with a bold cellphone gambit that killed and injured scores of terrorists.
—Editorial, Boston Herald, 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 10 Jul. 2025.
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