Lourche

Lourche was a French board game played during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, belonging to the broad family of tables games, the same family that includes backgammon, in which pieces move around a board according to the roll of dice. Lourche was specifically described as a game of contrary movement, and the seventeenth century lexicographer Antoine Furetiere characterized it simply as a kind of trictrac, the general French name for tables games of this type. The game is mentioned in the work of the French writer Francois Rabelais as early as 1534 and was known widely enough in England to be referenced by William Shakespeare, including in the play Coriolanus, though the precise rules and the exact number of players have not survived and are considered lost to history. Lourche is remembered today chiefly through language rather than play, since the English idiom left in the lurch, meaning to be abandoned in a difficult or hopeless position, descends directly from the French phrase demeurer lourche, which referred to being caught in a losing position within the game itself. Other historical names for the game include Lurch and Lurche in English and Lorzen or Lurtschspiel in German.