tick-tack-toe

noun

1. a simple game in which one player marks down only X’s and another only O’s, each alternating in filling in any of the nine compartments of a figure formed by two vertical lines crossed by two horizontal lines, the winner being the first to fill in three marks in any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row.
2. a children’s game consisting of trying, with the eyes shut, to bring a pencil down upon one of a set of circled numbers, as on a slate, the number touched being counted as a score.

noun

1. US and Canadian a game in which two players, one using a nought, “O”, the other a cross, “X”, alternately mark one square out of nine formed by two pairs of crossed lines, the winner being the first to get three of his symbols in a rowAlso called (in Britain and certain other countries): noughts and crosses

n.1884, probably an extension of tick-tack (1580s), a form of backgammon, possibly from Middle French trictrac, perhaps imitative of the sound of tiles on the board.