Epaulette Mate

This mate is named from military uniform decoration rather than from any player. Etymonline dates epaulet, also spelled epaulette, to 1783 in English in the sense of a shoulder ornament on a uniform, from the French epaulette of the sixteenth century, a diminutive of epaule meaning shoulder. That in turn goes back through Old French espaule to Latin spatula, a flat piece of wood or splint and in Medieval Latin the shoulder blade, itself a diminutive of spatha, from Greek spathe, a broad flat sword. Wiktionary gives the same derivation, from French epaulette, from epaule plus the diminutive suffix -ette, and lists epaulette mate among the term's derived forms. Wikipedia's checkmate-pattern article supplies the chess link: the king is trapped between two of its own parallel retreat squares occupied by its own pieces, and the perceived visual similarity between the rooks and epaulettes, ornamental shoulder pieces worn on military uniforms, gives the checkmate its name. Wikipedia cites Carlsen-Ernst, Wijk aan Zee 2004 as an example, in a sideways form of the pattern.

First documented: n.a. for the chess term; the English word epaulet is dated to 1783 by Etymonline — n.a. for the chess term