Decoy
A tactic that lures an opposing piece, often the king, to an unfavorable square.
Decoys frequently use a sacrifice or forcing check to draw a piece onto a square where it becomes vulnerable to a follow-up tactic, such as a fork or discovered attack.
Etymology
The word is a hunting term before it is a chess term. Etymonline records decoy as a noun from the 1610s (“a swindler”), 1650s, and 1660s (“a lure employed in enticing game into a snare”), perhaps from Dutch kooi “cage,” used of a pond surrounded by nets into which wildfowl were lured. The chess metaphor is a direct transfer of the fowler's trap: an enemy piece is baited onto a square where it comes to harm. No source consulted documents who first used decoy as a chess term or when; the German equivalent, Hinlenkung (“steering-towards”), likewise carries no coinage date in its own reference article.
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.