pawn

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɔːn/
• Rhymes: -ɔːn
• (US) IPA^(key): /pɔn/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /pɑn/
• (Southern American English) IPA^(key): /pɑɒn/
• Homophone: porn (non-rhotic accents)

A black pawn in chess

From Middle English pawn, pown, pewne, poune, powne, paun, from Anglo-Norman paun, poun (“pawn, pedestrian”) ( = Old French poon, päon, pëon), from Late Latin pedō, pedonis (“footsoldier”), from Latin pēs, ped- (“foot”). Doublet of peon.

pawn (plural pawns)

1. (chess) The most common chess piece, or a similar piece in a similar game. In chess each side has eight; moves are only forward, and attacks are only forward diagonally or en passant.
2. (colloquial) Someone who is being manipulated or used to some end.

   Though a pawn of the gods, her departure is the precipitating cause of the Trojan War.

• See also Thesaurus:pawn

Chess pieces in English · chess pieces, chessmen (see also: chess) (layout · text)
king	queen	castle, rook	bishop	knight	pawn

• Pawn (chess) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Appendix:Chess_pieces

From Middle French pan (“pledge, security”), apparently from a Germanic language (compare Middle Dutch pant, Old High German pfant).

pawn (plural pawns)

1. The state of being held as security for a loan, or as a pledge.

   All our jewellery was in pawn by this stage.

   • Shakespeare

     My life I never held but as a pawn / To wage against thy enemies.

2. An instance of pawning something.
   • Shakespeare

     Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown.

   • John Donne

     As the morning dew is a pawn of the evening fatness, so, O Lord, let this day's comfort be the earnest of to-morrow's.

3. (now rare) An item given as security on a loan, or as a pledge.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):

     , New York, 2001, p.106:

     Brokers, takers of pawns, biting userers, I will not admit; yet […] I will tolerate some kind of usery.

   • Francis Bacon

     As for mortgaging or pawning, […] men will not take pawns without use [i.e. interest].

4. (rare) A pawnshop, pawnbroker.

pawn (third-person singular simple present pawns, present participle pawning, simple past and past participle pawned)

1. To pledge; to stake or wager.
2. To give as security on a loan of money; especially, to deposit (something) at a pawn shop.
   • 1965, Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone

     But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it, babe.

• (to deposit at a pawn shop): hock

• pawn off

pawn (countable and uncountable, plural pawns)

1. Alternative form of paan
   • 1832, Meer Hassan Ali, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

     A tray filled with pawns, prepared with the usual ingredients, as lime cuttie (a bitter gum), betel-nut, tobacco, spices, &c.

   • 1892, Chambers's Journal (volume 69, page 320)

     To our English taste, pawn is very offensive; but the natives of India relish it, and regard it as a necessity. It is much eaten by Mohammedans of both sexes, and by the natives of Bengal.

pawn (plural pawns)

1. A gallery.

pawn (third-person singular simple present pawns, present participle pawning, simple past and past participle pawned)

1. (video games) Alternative form of pwn

• WPAN