castling
Pluralcastlings (some meanings)
Pluralcastlings (some meanings)
- 1In chess, a move where the king moves two squares toward a rook and the rook moves to the square on the king's other side.
Castling early gave White a safer king and a connected pair of rooks.
Many players run into trouble because they postpone castling for too long.
Note
A verbal noun from the verb castle, reaching back to Middle English castellinge. It is usually uncountable, so players talk about castling in general rather than counting castlings. FIDE's 2023 Laws of Chess separate castling that is prevented temporarily from castling that is lost. A piece standing between the king and the rook only blocks the move for the moment. It becomes legal again once the path is clear.
- 2Present participle of castle.
White is castling kingside to finish developing the position.
Castling on move six left her with a solid, well-guarded king.
Note
The -ing form carries every meaning of the verb castle, not only the chess one. A player can be castling kingside, but a cricket bowler can also be castling a batsman by knocking over the stumps. The form also keeps the older meaning of housing someone in a castle. As a gerund it shades into the name of the chess move. In "castling early" the verb is still at work, while in "castling is prevented" the word names the move.
- 3In shogi, the act of arranging pieces into a defensive formation that shields the king behind pawns and gold or silver generals.
Castling in shogi often takes several moves to build a strong defensive shell.
Beginners frequently skip castling and pay for it when their king is attacked.
Note
Shogi players borrowed the chess word for something slower and looser. It names building a defensive structure over several moves, not one fixed move. The king (玉) is tucked behind pawns and gold or silver generals, often reinforced by a knight and a lance. Where the chess move has a single prescribed shape, castling in shogi describes construction, and many different arrangements count as castling.
- 4USKAST-ling/ˈkæstlɪŋ/UKKAHST-ling/ˈkɑːstlɪŋ/A miniature cast or mold, or a small copy formed from one.
The sculptor used a castling to reproduce the figurine in miniature.
Several delicate castlings lined the workbench, each pulled from the same form.
Note
The -ling ending gives this sense its smallness: a little cast, the miniature of a mold. Writers can stretch the word toward the living. Danielle Devon's Divinity in Chains (2009) calls the first woman a castling molded from the goddess Celeste's own image, and her descendants are "Her castlings." That use keeps the idea of shaping in a form and adds the tenderness of a diminutive.
- 5USKAST-ling/ˈkæstlɪŋ/UKKAHST-ling/ˈkɑːstlɪŋ/A thing or person that has been cast; something produced by casting.
Every castling from that batch bore the same small flaw.
He examined the castling closely before adding it to the pile.
Similarcasting
Note
The broadest of the cast + -ling words, it can name people as readily as objects. Claude Saumaise's Funus linguae hellenisticae (1678) uses castlings for people forced to shift for themselves and seek new homes. In his account they wander the South Sea until they reach the coast of Peru. Those castlings are cast out, not cast in a mold, so context decides which kind of casting is meant.
Less common meanings
- 6USKAST-ling/ˈkæstlɪŋ/UKKAHST-ling/ˈkɑːstlɪŋ/A miscarriage, or the premature birth of young before full term.
The shepherd recorded another castling among the flock that bitter winter.
Grief over the castling hung heavy in the cottage for days.
Note
An old word built from cast and -ling: young that has been cast, thrown off before its time. Sir Thomas Browne still uses it in Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), writing of the urine in a castling's bladder. It has nothing to do with the chess move, which comes from the verb castle. Because the sense is obsolete, a modern reader will need context to understand it.
- 7USKAST-ling/ˈkæstlɪŋ/UKKAHST-ling/ˈkɑːstlɪŋ/A second or third swarm of bees that leaves a hive later in the same season.
That summer the hive threw a strong castling in early August.
The old beekeeper hived the castling in a fresh skep.
Note
An old beekeeping term from the same cast + -ling formation as the word for a premature birth. Here the thing cast off is a swarm, and the word is reserved for the later ones, never the hive's first departure. The term is obsolete, so it belongs in historical writing on bees. Outside that setting, a modern reader would hear the chess word instead.
Showing meanings only.
castling is a form of castle
castle, verb: In chess, to move the king two squares toward a rook and swing that rook past it in one turn, allowed only if neither piece has moved. Full entry
- Spelling
- castle → castling: drop the e, add -ing
Practice
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Origins
Formed from "cast" combined with the suffix "-ling".
From Middle English "castellinge", equivalent to the verb "castle" plus the suffix "-ing".