gambetto

Gambetto in Italian means 'a tripping up'—from gamba ('leg'). In wrestling, a gambetto was a leg trip: you sacrifice your own stability to take your opponent's feet out from under them. It was a risky, aggressive move that could backfire but could also end the match in a moment.

In the late 1500s, Spanish chess master Ruy López de Segura applied the term to a chess strategy: deliberately sacrificing a pawn (or piece) in the opening to gain a positional advantage. The sacrifice—like the wrestling trip—was a calculated risk that traded material for initiative.

English borrowed gambit from Italian/Spanish in the 1650s, initially only for chess. But by the 1800s, the word had expanded to mean any opening move in a negotiation, conversation, or contest—especially one that involves a sacrifice or risk. A diplomatic gambit, a political gambit, an opening gambit.

Today, gambit is used far more often outside chess than in it. Every negotiation has an opening gambit. Every political campaign launches with a gambit. The wrestling trip became a chess sacrifice became a universal metaphor for strategic risk-taking.