From Italian 'gambetto' (a leg-sweep) — a wrestling trip adopted into chess as an opening sacrifice, now any calculated maneuver.
An opening move in chess in which a player sacrifices a piece to gain a strategic advantage; more broadly, any calculated opening move or stratagem intended to secure an advantage.
From Spanish 'gambito,' from Italian 'gambetto' (the act of tripping someone, a leg-sweep), from 'gamba' (leg), from Late Latin 'gamba' (leg, hoof), possibly from Greek 'kampē' (a bending, a joint). The chess term was popularized by the Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura in his 1561 chess treatise. The metaphor is vivid: a gambit in chess is like a wrestler's leg-sweep — you sacrifice something (a pawn