When playing the game Backgammon...?

Question

What does the PIPS stand for? I know that it's the number of places you've got left to move, just wanted to know if it stood for anything in particular.

Answer 1

The backgammon source was your best answer.  Just to expand a bit, in case you're wondering about the word history, I'm adding a piece from the Oxford English Dictionary.  (I accessed the OED Online through my local library Web site).

1. a. Each of the dots or symbols on a playing card, die, or domino. In extended use: a numeral card, as opposed to a court card.

1604 T. MIDDLETON Ant & Nightingale sig. E, Like a blanke Die, the one hauing no black Peepes.

1648 R. HERRICK Hesperides sig. N8v, Those Picks or Diamonds in the Card: With peeps of Harts, of Club and Spade Are here most neatly inter-laid.

1674 C. COTTON Compl. Gamester xiii. 123 The rest [of the Cards] are best according to their value in pips.

1749 B. MARTIN Lingua Britannica Reformata (at cited word), Pip, a spot upon cards.

1755 Connoisseur No. 60. 357 A gamester's mind is a mere pack of cards, and has no impressions beyond the pips and the Four Honours.

1865 Compl. Domino-player 12 When one has played all his dominoes out, he counts the number of pips in the other's hand.

1880 R. BROWNING Pietro in Dramatic Idyls 438 Fling..Golden dice..Note what sum the pips present!

1937 O. ST. J. GOGARTY As I was going down Sackville St. 174, I like the King and Queen and the Knave, but the pips! 1978 A. S. BYATT Virgin in Garden vi. 61, I don't mean the pure laboratory stuff where you never get beyond counting coloured pips blindfold on playing cards.

1995 Independent 3 Oct. (Suppl.) 22/3 A player's pip count is the number of pips on the dice he must throw in order to [etc.].

2004 B. MOORE What Tarot Cards i. 6 Pips are dots or symbols that mark numeric values; for example, the three of diamonds has three diamonds on it.

Answer 2

1.   One of the spots on a die that indicate numeric value.

   2. A unit of distance on a backgammon board corresponding to the difference in point (1) numbers. For example, the 13-point and the seven-point are six pips apart.