Lourche
Lourche or Lurch (French: "jeu du Lourche", German: "Lurz", "Lurtsch" or "Lurtschspiel") was a French board game that was played in the 16th or 17th century. It was played, like backgammon, on a tables board. The rules of the game have been lost, Furetière (1727) describing it simply as a "kind of trictrac game", trictrac being the name given to the board used for tables games. The game is referred to in the English expression 'left in the lurch', parallel to the French "demeurer lourche", referring to the hopeless losing position a player of the game could end up  in. History. The game was listed by Rabelais in his work, "Gargantua and Pantagruel", in 1534. In 1586, the "English Courtier and Country Gentleman" says that "In fowle weather, we send for some honest neighbours, if happely wee bee without wives, alone at home (as seldome we are) and with them we play at Dice and Cards, sorting our selves according to the number of Players, and their skill, some in Ticktacke, some Lurche, some to Irish game, or Dublets." Shakespeare also alludes to Lourche, both in Coriolanus and the Merry Wives of Windsor. Addison (1892) notes that the game  is also recorded as Ourche which "suggests that "lourche" stands for "l'ourche", the initial 'l' being merely the definite article," and that "ourche" may have meant the 'pool' i.e. the pot into which the stakes were placed and thus may have an origin in the Latin "urceus", a "pitcher" or "vase". Godefroy (1888) confirms that the game was known in French as "Ourche" and distinguished from Trictrac. Samuel Johnson, citing Skinner, says that Lurch derives from l'Ourche, "a game of draughts much used among the Dutch", and that l'Ourche in turn comes from the Latin "orca", "box" or "corner". Lourche