Etymology Dictionary

BACKGAMMON,  a kind of game.  (Danish ?)   Spelt baggamon in Howell's Letters, ii. 66 (Todd's Johnson).   A quotation from Swift in the same dict. has the spelling backgammon.   It is backgammon in Butler's Hudibras, c. iii. pt. 2; ed. Bell, ii. 163.   The game seems to have been much the same as that formerly called 'tables.'   β. Origin unknown.   Mr. Wedgwood guesses it to mean 'tray-game,' i.e. game played on a tray or board; cf. Dan. bakke, a tray (see Basin), and gammen, game.   In any case, we may be sure that the latter part of the word signifies 'game,' and is nothing but the very common M. E. word gamen, a game.   See Game; and see Blot.   ¶ A common etymology is from W. bach, little, and cammon, a conflict, given in Todd's Johnson; but, in Welsh, the more usual position of the adjective is after its substantive.   It is a worthless guess. [†]

ADDENDA

Wedgwood remarks that 'his etymology is something more than a guess;' because the game is played on a tray-shaped board, and the word blot, used in the game, is Danish; see Blot (2).   But it is remarkable that back, a tray, does not seem to appear either in Middle or provincial English (except, that in London, a back means a large brewer's tub); and it seems to me very doubtful if the game was originally played on 'a tray-shaped' board.   On the contrary, it was called 'tables,' and I suppose that these 'tables,' or flat boards, had originally no protecting rim or ridge at the edge.   I strongly suspect that Strutt is quite right, when he says, in his Sports and Pastimes, bk. iv. c. 2. § 16, that 'the words are perfectly Saxon, as bæc and gamen, i.e. Back-Game; so denominated because the performance consists in the players bringing their men back from their antagonists' tables into their own; or because the pieces are sometimes taken up and obliged to go back, that is, re-enter at the table they came from.'   I object to the former of these solutions, because the men are not brought back, but forward; but the latter solution is highly probable.   The word would then be wholly English; not a hybrid form.