n.
A game played by two people, each trying to make a line of three X's or three O's in a boxlike figure with nine spaces.
[Probably imitative of the sounds of the original children's game, in which players brought pencils down on a numbered slate with their eyes shut.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
