Pre-Move
A casual term, mainly from online chess, for entering a move before the opponent has finished their turn, so it executes instantly once it becomes legal.
Pre-moving is a common technique in fast online time controls such as bullet and blitz, where saving even a fraction of a second per move can be decisive, though a pre-move that turns out illegal once played is simply ignored by the interface.
Etymology
Premove is a modern English coinage from the software era, formed from the prefix pre- and move: it names an interface feature of online chess in which a player enters a move in advance so that it is executed instantly when the opponent's move arrives, a device essential to bullet and blitz play. Wikipedia's Glossary of chess carries premove as a headword, and Wiktionary records both a noun and a verb sense. Wiktionary's quotations show the word in mainstream chess writing by the end of the 2010s: the verb is cited from Peter Doggers on Chess.com in 2019 and the noun from Leonard Barden in the Financial Times of 15 September 2020. Since the concept cannot exist without a computer interface, the word can only postdate internet chess servers, but no earlier attestation was found in the sources fetched.
First documented: n.a. (earliest quotations found are 2019 and 2020) — n.a.; Wiktionary cites Peter Doggers, Chess.com, 2019 (verb) and Leonard Barden, Financial Times, 15 September 2020 (noun)
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.