Chicane

Chicane, the pettifogging subterfuge and delay of sharp law-practitioners, also any deliberate attempt to gain unfair advantage by petty tricks. A more common English form of the word is “chicanery.” “Chicane” is technically used also as a term in the game of bridge for the points a player may score if he holds no trumps. The word is French, derived either from chaugān, Persian for the stick used in the game of “polo,” still played on foot and called chicane in Languedoc (the military use of chicaner, to take advantage of slight variations in ground, suits this derivation), or from chic, meaning little or petty, from the Spanish chico, small, which appears in the phrase “chic à chic,” little by little.

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