Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A game for two persons, played on a special board of 256 squares with 19 men apiece, the object of each player being to drive out his opponent's men from their position and to replace them with his own.
Wiktionary
- n. board games A board game invented by George Howard Monks in which the players' men jump over those in adjacent squares.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Greek Antiq.) The long jump, with weights in the hands, -- the most important of the exercises of the Pentathlon.
- n. A game played on a board having 256 squares, by two persons with 19 men each, or by four with 13 men each, starting from different corners and striving to place each his own set of men in a corresponding position in the opposite corner by moving them or by jumping them over those met in progress.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a board game in which players try to move their pieces into their opponent's bases
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek ἅλμα (halma, "leap"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Inside were the emerald and opal "halma" board and ruby and diamond pieces, and with them a slip of parchment with Daphne's handwriting.”
“When you have gone, I will ask Mrs. Gordon to teach me the spirit of acquiescence, and one of those distracting games -- bésique or halma, or some of the other infernal pastimes that heaven decrees for recalcitrant spirits in need of crushing discipline.”
“And because they're ignorant novices, brought up on old maid and halma, they think it's foul play!”
“Lowrie distributed Christmas parcels in December 1919, including indoor games (dominoes, checkers, chess, and halma), mouth organs, and a small amount of money (one hundred to 250 Marks), so that welfare committees could purchase a Christmas tree, decorations, and small supplies.”
“Think of the thousands and millions that are being demoralized by games of chance, by marbles -- when they play for keeps -- by billiards and croquet, by fox and geese, authors, halma, tiddledywinks and pigs in clover.”
“None of my children have been brought up to play card games," said Mrs. Eggelby; "draughts and halma and those sorts of games I encourage.”
“I've come to be your legger, grandma," she announced, "and I'll read to you, or amuse you, or play dominos or halma with you, or anything you like.”
“Then on another evening we might encourage the men to play progressive games like draughts, halma, picture lotto, spillikins, ping-pong, and beggar-my-neighbour.”
“And because they're ignorant novices, brought up on old maid and halma, they think it's foul play!”
“In the brilliant preface to "Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant," Bernard Shaw, referring to middle-class home life, speaks of "the normal English way being to sit in separate families in separate rooms in separate houses, each person silently occupied with a book, a paper, or a game of halma, cut off equally from the blessings of society and solitude.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘halma’.
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nouns
enfleurage, fautor, mafia, haslet, chopine, sea-gate, cantillation, formicary, go-devil, Gongorism, mamzer, mazarine and 147 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Rognons of Random Palavery
Another of my random palavery lists for terms and phrases that don't fit into any of my other lists.
priorship, exigeant, refectory, reestablish, capper, reesed, quar, reprune, orificial, reaming-iron, terminist, terminism and 3097 more...
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Thirteen
triskaidecagon, tridecagon, demiculverin, enneagynia, terzdecimole, trecena, monogynia, sash-saw, digynia, threttene, baker’s dozen, triskaidekaphobia and 40 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for halma.
hernesheir A.k.a. the board game "Chinese Checkers"? Nov 30, 2010