'Checkmate' comes from a Persian phrase meaning 'the king is helpless'

Chess vocabulary traveled from Persia through the Arab world into medieval Europe, carrying the phrase shah mat, 'the king is at a loss' or stunned, not literally 'dead' as often claimed. Arabic speakers reheard mat through their own word for 'died,' and Old French turned it into eschec mat, which English flattened into 'checkmate.'