Score Sheet

Score sheet is an ordinary English compound with no chess-specific word history. Score descends from late Old English scoru meaning twenty, borrowed from Old Norse skor meaning mark, notch or incision, from the practice of cutting notches on a tally stick; the sense of a mark made for the purpose of recording a point in a game or match is recorded from the 1670s, and the verb meaning to keep record of the scores in a game from 1742. In chess the compound is a term of art fixed by the Laws of Chess rather than by literary usage: FIDE Article 8.1 requires each player to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation of Appendix C, on the paper scoresheet prescribed for the competition, and the current Laws also recognise a FIDE-certified electronic scoresheet. The FIDE glossary defines scoresheet simply as a paper sheet with spaces for writing the moves, adding that this can also be electronic. No source found in this session documents a first chess use of the term or a datable chess coinage.

First documented: n.a. — n.a.