in general, signifies any diversion or sport which is performed with regularity, and conducted according to certain rules.

Games are usually distinguished into those of exercise and address, and those of hazard. To the first belong chess, tennis, billiards, and others; to the latter those performed with cards or dice, as backgammon, ombre, piquet, whist, and others.

GAMES, in Antiquity, were public diversions, exhibited on solemn occasions. Such were the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, among the Greeks; and the Apollinarian, Circensian, Capitoline, &c. games, among the Romans.