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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
David Wingrave, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025
The second round is a bigger swing, a bolder gambit all the way around, really, and not just because it’s based on a high-stakes example of the adage about asking for forgiveness being better than waiting for permission.
—Sophie Brookover, Vulture, 18 Oct. 2025
The gambit backfired as voters looked to the extremes of the left and right for leadership, depriving Macron's governing centrists of a majority.
—John Toher, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Oct. 2025
But by that point, the gambit had worked.
—Winston Cho, HollywoodReporter, 15 Oct. 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 29 Oct. 2025.
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