pawn¹ / pôn/ • n. a chess piece of the smallest size and value. A pawn moves one square forward along its file if unobstructed (or two on the first move), or one square diagonally forward when making a capture. Each player begins with eight pawns on the second rank, and can promote a pawn to become any other piece (typically a queen) if it reaches the opponent's end of the board. ∎  a person used by others for their own purposes: they had allowed themselves to be used as pawns within the Cold War.pawn² • v. [tr.] deposit (an object) with a pawnbroker as security for money lent: I pawned the necklace to cover the loan.• n. archaic an object left as security for money lent.PHRASES: in pawn (of an object) held as security by a pawnbroker: all our money was gone and everything was in pawn.PHRASAL VERBS: pawn someone/something off pass off someone or something unwanted: newly industrialized economies are racing to pawn off old processes on poorer countries.

pawn.
1. Anything given as security for a loan, etc. A pawn shop or pawnbroker's establishment is therefore a building where goods are deposited in exchange for cash, to await redemption or sale: some of the earliest were established by Lombards in C13, and many medieval pawn exchanges (called Monti di Pietà) were founded in Italy (e.g. Perugia and a large one in Naples).

2. Gallery, colonnade, or covered passage where goods are exposed for sale, especially in a bazaar.

pawn a chess piece of the smallest size and value, that moves one square forwards along its file if unobstructed (or two on the first move), or one square diagonally forwards when making a capture. Each player begins with eight pawns on the second rank, and can promote a pawn to become any other piece (typically a queen) if it reaches the opponent's end of the board. In figurative use, a pawn is a person used by others for their own purposes.

Recorded from late Middle English, the word comes via Anglo-Norman French from medieval Latin pedo ‘foot-soldier’, from Latin pes, ped- ‘foot’.

PAWN

To deliverpersonal propertyto another as a pledge or as security for a debt. A deposit of goods with a creditor as security for a sum of money borrowed.

In common usage, pawn signifies a pledge of goods, as distinguished from a pledge of intangible personal property, such as a contract right. In a more limited sense, it denotes a deposit of personal property with a pawnbroker as security for a loan. A pawned article is retained until the loan is repaid within a certain time. If it is not repaid on time, the pawnbroker may sell the item.

pawn1 piece of the smallest value in chess. XIV. ME. poun — AN. poun, OF. peon :— medL. pedō, -ōn- foot-soldier, f. L. pēs, ped- FOOT. The use goes back to Pers. piyāda, f. pai foot.