Draw
A game result in which neither player wins, arising from stalemate, agreement, repetition, or insufficient material.
Common draw mechanisms include stalemate, threefold repetition, the fifty-move rule, mutual agreement, and dead positions where checkmate is impossible for either side (such as king versus king).
Etymology
The verb draw comes from Old English dragan “to drag, to draw, protract.” The contest sense is comparatively late and its motivation is genuinely uncertain: Etymonline records the meaning “game or contest that ends without a winner” as first attested in the phrase drawn match in the 1610s, explicitly noting the origin of this signification is uncertain. How draws were scored in chess was settled much later than the word: the Paris 1867 tournament ignored drawn games entirely, and the Dundee 1867 tournament initiated the half point that is now standard. London 1883 required drawn games to be replayed, and Monte Carlo in 1901–1902 replayed draws with a ¾–¼ scoring scheme; the modern conditions for a draw are set out in Articles 5 and 9 of the FIDE Laws of Chess.
First documented: 1610s — Phrase “drawn match”, general English usage (no specific publication named)
Translations
| Language | Term | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic | تعادل (ta'adul) | Literally "equalization," the general sports word for a draw. |
| Dutch | remise loanword | Borrowed from French remis. |
| French | nulle / remis | Nulle ("null/void") is standard; remis is an older alternative. |
| German | Remis loanword | Borrowed from French remis rather than a native German word. |
| Italian | patta | Same root that gave English "stalemate" (via "stale") an indirect cousin. |
| Polish | remis loanword | Borrowed from French remis. |
| Portuguese | empate | Literally "tie/deadlock," the general sports word for a draw. |
| Russian | ничья (nich'ya) | Literally "nobody's [game]" — a distinct possessive-negation metaphor. |
| Spanish | tablas | Literally "boards/planks," an idiomatic term unrelated to the English word "draw." |
| Turkish | beraberlik | General sports word for "draw/tie." |