zugzwang
A situation in which a player is forced to make a disadvantageous move; a position where any legal move will worsen a player's situation.
countable, uncountable
In such a position his condition will get worse step by step until he is forced, by the necessity of making a move, to relax his hold on, or weaken, some key point, and his game collapses. A combination directed to bring about such a catastrophe is called by the Germans Zugzwang (compulsion to move), and the player who succumbs under it is said to have got into Zugzwang.
A situation in which someone is forced to make a disadvantageous move.
countable, figuratively, uncountable
An explanation for this phenomenon may be that speech acts that include instructions (e.g., a command or request) show a higher level of activity than speech acts of assertion; the ethnomethodological analysis of conversation speaks of conversational Zugzwänge:²⁴ a request, a question or a command demands a reaction of the addressee.
Where it comes from
From German Zugzwang, from Zug (“move”) + Zwang (“compulsion”).
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry zugzwang (CC BY-SA 4.0).