philosopher's game

noun

philosopher's game

noun
1

Historical A game similar to chess, played on an oblong board with round, triangular and square pieces.

  • The ordinary recreations which we have in winter, and in most solitary times busy our minds with, are cards, tables and dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, shuttlecock […]1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 4:
Synonyms
rithmomachy, ryghtmathy

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.