Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A game in which blocks representing bodies of soldiers are moved on a map: designed to illustrate the art of war.
  • noun A game designed to teach the principles of strategy and tactics.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A boardgame used to train military tactics and strategy
  • noun A variant of chess in which players cannot see their opponent's pieces

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German Kriegspiel

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word kriegspiel.

Examples

  • All notes are by the translator.) [1] Also known as kriegspiel, this is the cabinet game that Guy Debord invented (circa

    Anarchist news dot org - News for anarchists and their friends 2009

  • Once, on a three-months 'reaction-drive voyage from Yggdrasill to Loki, he had taught a couple of professors of extraterrestrial zoology to play kriegspiel, and before the end of the trip, he was being horrified by the callous disregard they showed for casualties.

    Uller Uprising Piper, H. Beam 1952

  • Once, on a three-months 'reaction-drive voyage from Yggdrasill to Loki, he had taught a couple of professors of extraterrestrial zoology to play _kriegspiel_, and before the end of the trip, he was being horrified by the callous disregard they showed for casualties.

    Uller Uprising H. Beam Piper 1934

  • To Mr W. was broached the idea: "I believe that if one set up a few obstacles on the floor, volumes of the British Encyclopedia and so forth, to make a Country, and moved these soldiers and guns about, one could have rather a good game, a kind of kriegspiel." ...

    Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books. 1906

  • More modern examples, in Germany in 1812, the kriegspiel (war game) was developed by the Prussian army.

    Tiny Subversions Darius Kazemi 2010

  • a military position as a player of kriegspiel could wish to have submitted to him.

    The Great Boer War Arthur Conan Doyle 1894

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • New games have an authentic feel

    And strive to be viscerally real,

    With corpses galore

    And fountains of gore

    Replacing old cerebral kriegspiel.

    April 13, 2019