In chess each player starts the game with two castle like pieces called "rooks". In history, was a rook ever considered anything else than a chess piece?

zbeckabee

An Old World bird (Corvus frugilegus) that resembles the North American crow and nests in colonies near the tops of trees. A swindler or cheat, especially at games. Transitive verb: rooked, rook·ing, rooks. To swindle; cheat: Customers are afraid of being rooked by unscrupulous vendors. http://www.ask.com/reference/dictionary/ahdict/18357/rook Jul 29 06, 8:03 PM

smartie806

"Originally, the rook symbolized a chariot. The Persian word rokh means chariot, and the corresponding pieces in Oriental chess games such as xiangqi and shogi have names meaning chariot. However, in the West, the rook is almost universally represented as a fortified tower. One possible explanation is that when the game was imported to Italy, the Persian rokh became the Italian word rocca, meaning fortress. Another possible explanation is that rooks represent siege towers. Rooks are usually made to look like small castles, and as a result, a rook is sometimes called a "castle". This usage was common in the past ("The Rook, or Castle, is next in power to the Queen" -- Howard Staunton, 1847) but today it is rarely, if ever, used in the literature or among players, except in reference to castling. (Here, "castle" is a verb referring to a move, not a noun referring to a piece.)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_%28chess%29 Jul 29 06, 8:07 PM