Blitz Chess
A fast time control, generally more than three but less than fifteen minutes per player under FIDE classification.
Blitz games are popular in both casual and rated competitive play, offering a middle ground between the speed of bullet and the depth of classical time controls.
Etymology
Blitz is a direct German loan. English took blitz in 1940 as a shortening of Blitzkrieg, itself German from 1939, formed from Blitz meaning lightning and Krieg meaning war. Chess borrowed the same word for very fast play, and Wikipedia's Glossary of chess glosses blitz chess as from German Blitz, lightning. Edward Winter's Earliest Occurrences of Chess Terms dates the chess usage tightly to the Second World War period: he cites Blitz chess in a photograph caption in Chess Review, June-July 1942, page 135, and the bare word blitz in Chess Review, August-September 1942, page 155, in the sentence: They played skittles, tournament, rapid transit, blitz and simultaneous chess. Winter also records earlier 1940 references to Blitz-krieg chess. In current practice, Wikipedia defines blitz as ten minutes or less per player, and records that the first unofficial world speed chess championship was held in Herceg Novi on 8 April 1970.
First documented: 1942 — Chess Review, June-July 1942, p. 135 (Blitz chess in a caption), and Chess Review, August-September 1942, p. 155, per Edward Winter
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.