Bishop
/ˈbɪʃəp/The piece that moves diagonally any number of squares.
Each side has two bishops, starting beside the knights. It is confined to squares of one color for the entire game. Cross-linguistically, the bishop's name has diverged more wildly than any other piece — the same original Sanskrit/Persian "elephant" word evolved into an ecclesiastical title in English, a fool in French, and a runner in German.
Etymology
The bishop began as an elephant. In Sanskrit chaturanga it was gaja or hasti ("elephant"); Persian shatranj called it pil, and Arabic prefixed the definite article to make al-fil, "the elephant." From there the name splintered dramatically as chess spread into Europe. Spanish kept the Arabic word almost unchanged as alfil, now meaningless outside chess. Italian reinterpreted the sound as alfiere, "standard-bearer." Old French heard fil and, through a chain of sound confusion, produced fol — "fool" or "jester" — giving modern French fou; Romanian followed the French sense with nebun, "madman." German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages abandoned the animal metaphor entirely and named the piece for its motion instead: Läufer, loper, löpare — all meaning "runner" — a reference to the long diagonal courses the piece runs, possibly influenced by an intermediate piece in medieval Courier Chess. Russian and Turkish kept the original meaning literally: slon and fil both still mean "elephant." English's "bishop" is its own late invention, first appearing in the 1560s, apparently because the piece's two "horns" (in older, abstract Islamic-style pieces) resembled a bishop's mitre — derived ultimately from Old English bisceop, from Latin episcopus, from Greek episkopos, "overseer."
Translations
| Language | Term | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic | الفيل (al-fil) | The original source phrase itself: literally "the elephant." |
| Dutch | loper | Literally "runner," cognate with German Läufer. |
| French | fou | Literally "fool/jester" — a classic false friend, arising from a sound-alike confusion with Arabic fil. |
| German | Läufer | Literally "runner," named for the diagonal move, not clergy. |
| Italian | alfiere | Literally "standard-bearer," a reinterpretation of the Arabic-derived alphilus. |
| Polish | goniec | Literally "messenger/courier." |
| Portuguese | bispo | Matches English: literally "bishop" (the clergy title). |
| Russian | слон (slon) | Literally "elephant" — retains the piece's original Sanskrit/Persian meaning. |
| Spanish | alfil loanword | Retained Arabic al-fil almost unchanged; the word is meaningless in ordinary Spanish outside chess. |
| Turkish | fil | Literally "elephant" — retains the original meaning. |