An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/matt

by Friedrich Kluge

matt, adjective, ‘checkmated; faint, languid, insipid,’ from Middle High German mat (genitive mattes), adjective, ‘checkmated’ (also figuratively), which was adopted from Romance in the latter half of the 12th century; compare French mat. Italian matto, Middle Latin mattus, whence also Dutch mat, English mate. This characteristic term, which was introduced with chess, is formed from Arabic and Persian schâh mât, ‘the king is dead.’ See Schach.