round robin

Etymology
1731, anglicization of, in English originally in British usage. Originally in sense of signing petitions in circular order so that the leaders could not be identified. Originated in 17th century France, where government officials signed petitions of grievances on ribbons, which were attached to the petition in a circle. Later adopted in the British Royal Navy, where petitions were signed with signatures arranged like spokes of a wheel. Sense of “tournament” from 1895. Unrelated to.

Noun

 * 1) The part of a tournament in which every player or team competes against each of the others in turn.
 * 2) A petition signed in a circular fashion to disguise the order in which it was done.
 * 3) * 1731 , Weekly Essays in June 1731, Craftman, Sat. June 5, No. 257, p. 238:
 * the Method used by Sailors when they mutiny, by signing their names in an orbicular manner, which they call a round Robin;
 * 1) A packet of rotating letters circulated regularly and in a fixed order among a group (often family members), whereby each member in turn contributes a new letter replacing their previous contribution before sending the packet to the next recipient.
 * 2)  A method of dividing loot amongst a party of players by having the game assign in turn loot to a player or an enemy corpse to loot to a player.
 * 3) A form of trade, a series of exchanges in which each person in turn receives items of the same value from the previous person, finally returning to the original donor. For example in  a stamp collector sends a packet of stamps to the next person on a list, who then takes the stamps he wants, replacing them with like-valued stamps, and then passing the packet to the next person on the list, until the packet ultimately returns to the original sender.
 * 4)  A method of making use of several similar subsystems, assigning tasks to each of them in turn. For example: data are sent to a destination down several communications links in turn to achieve greater combined speed.
 * 5)  A form of bet on the full set of possible combinations from a larger group (of teams, racehorses, etc.), such as the outcomes A+B, B+C and A+C from a group ABC.
 * 6)  The MIDI technique of using different sampled versions of the same sound for successive notes, to avoid an unnaturally repetitive effect.
 * 1)  The MIDI technique of using different sampled versions of the same sound for successive notes, to avoid an unnaturally repetitive effect.

Translations

 * French:
 * Russian:
 * Spanish:


 * Finnish: kiertovuorottelu