Persian
According to Wikipedia the phrase "Shah Mat" means, literally, "the King is ambushed". It is a common misconception that it means "the King is dead" because chess reached Europe via the Islamic world, and Arabic mata means "died", "is dead". But the etymology of mate is a Persian verb mandan, meaning "to remain", which is cognate with the Latin word maneo. It means "remained" in the sense of "abandoned" and the formal translation is "surprised", in the military sense of "ambushed" (not in the sense of "astonished"). So the king is in mate when he is ambushed, at a loss, or abandoned to his fate.
