Origination of the word Pawn – Chess.com

by Beast719
LLANTRISANT Wales [Wales]
Member Since: Jan 2009
Member Points: 88

My etymological studies have led me to a definition that predates the current OED one by 204 years. The lowliest rank on the chess-board which we have come to know today as pawns was first noted in Grey’s letter to Monkhouse 1245 “Prithee thee the merit to use the PAWs wysely (sic) over squar’d board “. In this context we note reference to the lowliest and most dispensable pieces on the board juxtaposed interchangeably against the same most despised and lowest ranking strata of contemporaneous society of the age by use of the Acronym PAW. Extensive studies have revealed this to mean – Peasants And Women. Fowler has demonstrated the phonetic transmogrification of the acronymal form PAW to Poor1from circa 1520.

It was approximately 200 years later with the introduction of the letter N into common usage (See White’s – The Cuts of Cuthole and opposition to the new letter in Englyshe) that we first see reference to Pawn as we know it today. Shown here in the seminal extract from As you like it: Orlando: On Saint Swithen’s day why is thine pawn like thine mother-in-law? Touchstone: Forsooth for I can verily touch it only once in the opening.

1 (The modern usage of poor of course refers to that strata of modern society who by economic factors are excluded from private health-care and/or private education).