A pawn is the lowliest payer on the chess board. But why are they called pawns?

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Today I’m going to talk about four words pawn. In some ways they all have to do with the lowly.

When people are desperate for cash they sometimes pawn their valuables.

Thankfully I’ve never been forced into this position but the basic arrangement is that you hand over your diamond tiara and the pawnbroker hands you a stack of bills. You agree to pay him back with interest in a certain time period or else he gets to keep and sell your tiara.

The reason the gentleman now in possession of your jewelry is called a pawnbroker, and the act is called pawning is that this agreement between the two of you is a kind of pledge and about 600 years ago a French word for “pledge” pan made its way into English.

The second word pawn I want to talk about today refers to people who are used as tools in other people’s schemes. This usage is almost as old as the “pledge” pawn although it comes from a different source.

Before I explain why someone who is being manipulated in this way is called a pawn I’ll jump to the third word pwn.*(note below)

Pwn is a fairly recent development. It means “to dominate.”

This new pwn is a word that could only come about in the internet age because it is a typo-word among internet gamers who intended to type own but since the key for the letter “p” is right beside the “o” key, own all too often came out pwn.  One gamer might claim to “own” another when he or she dominates them in games.

It seems to me that the coincidental similarity in meaning and form between pwn and pawn could be one reason why the new word caught on.

Now to why that abused individual might be called a pawn.

Someone who is merely a pawn is so called because they are being used like the lowliest piece in a game of chess. The name of the chess piece in turn came about because in real life the lowliest soldiers were those who fought on foot and when the Norman Conquerors arrived in England with their French a paun meant “a walker” based on the Latin root word for foot.

Note: My gentle subscribers (now I know why those old authors addressed their “gentle readers”) have pointed out to me that pwn is pronounced to rhyme with own.