Novelty
A new move in a known opening position that has not been previously played or analyzed at a high level.
Novelties are often prepared secretly for a specific opponent or tournament and can carry surprise value even if not objectively the strongest possible move.
Etymology
The English word is recorded from the late 14th century as novelte. In chess the word has been narrowed to a technical sense: a “theoretical novelty” (TN or N) is a move in the opening that has not been played before, abbreviated in chess literature and databases as N or TN. The most famous illustration is Fischer's 11...Nh5 in game three of the 1972 World Championship match against Spassky — a move that had never been played before and shocked Spassky at the board. The rise of the term is bound up with the systematic cataloguing of opening theory: Chess Informant (Šahovski Informator) was founded in Belgrade in 1966 by Aleksandar Matanović and Milivoje Molerović, and its language-independent system of symbols became the international standard, later associated with an award for the most important theoretical novelty of each volume. No source consulted states who first used the N/TN symbol or when, so this connection is context rather than a documented coinage.
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.