mao

The word “mao” means a card game (named after Mao Zedong) in which the rules are deliberately kept secret from new players, who must work them out by observation and penalty. In plain terms, best known today as the secretive card game, or as a chess-variant piece; also a common Chinese surname, most famously Mao Zedong.

“Mao” is pronounced mow (/maʊ̯/ in IPA).

Here is “mao” used in a sentence: “Nobody explains the rules of Mao to you — you just get penalized until you figure them out.”

“Mao” is a noun.

“Mao” is an uncommon word in modern English.

“Mao” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a card game (named after Mao Zedong) in which the rules are deliberately kept secret from new players, who must work them out by observation and penalty.

The card game Mao is named after Mao Zedong, though the rules themselves have nothing to do with him or Chinese history. The name is used precisely because new players are kept in the dark about the rules, much as the game's origins remain deliberately obscure.

In Mao, the rules are deliberately withheld from new players, who must work them out through observation and by being penalized for mistakes. This secrecy is the defining feature of the game, turning rule discovery itself into the main challenge.

In fairy chess, a mao is a piece that moves one square orthogonally and then one square diagonally outward. It is similar to a standard chess knight's leaping move but more restricted, since its path can be blocked partway through.