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Pawn   Listen
verb
Pawn  v. t.  (past & past part. pawned; pres. part. pawning)  
1.
To give or deposit in pledge, or as security for the payment of money borrowed; to put in pawn; to pledge; as, to pawn one's watch.
Synonyms: hock (colloq). "And pawned the last remaining piece of plate."
2.
To pledge for the fulfillment of a promise; to stake; to risk; to wager; to hazard. "Pawning his honor to obtain his lust."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pawn" Quotes from Famous Books



... chivalric manner, exchanging with the besiegers wordy compliments until such time as the latter were ready to begin. The Turks derided the slow progress of the works, inquired if their ordnance was in pawn, twitted them with growing fat for want of exercise, and expressed the fear that the Christians should depart ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Verrerie, where, I suppose, you got them a little cheaper." And, so saying, he showed to the guilt-stricken Gambouge how the name of that coffee-house was inscribed upon every one of the articles which he had wished to pawn. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... collection. Politian the poet, and Mirandula, the Phoenix of his age, were the messengers whom the great Lorenzo sent out to gather the spoil; and he only prayed, he said, that they might find such a store of good books that he would be obliged to pawn his furniture to ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... runne thorow: within two foot of the bottome of the Rod there was a hole made, for to put in a winde, to turne with a barrell, to gather up his Line, and loose at his pleasure; this was his manner of Trouling: But I will pawn my credit, that I will shew a way, either in Maior, Pond, or River, that shall take more Pikes than any Trouler with his Rod: And thus it is. First, take forked stick, a Line of twelve yards long wound upon it, at the upper end, leave about a yard, either to tye a bunch of Sags, or a ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker

... fell to the oars with a will, and were soon out of sight in the darkness. Nothing more was ever heard of them by the boys, but as some time ago a sailor was arrested on the Bowery trying to pawn a candlestick of solid gold marked Buena Ventura, it is reasonable to suppose the men eventually got ashore. The prisoner gave the name of Jones, but as he had red hair it is not unreasonable to assume that he was none other than Wells. As nobody claimed the candlestick and ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... to a pawn shop where he picked out a thirty-two calibre revolver and several boxes of cartridges. Also a ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... Andrew, "but with this little difference, that in chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known to anyone. Believe me," ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... upon a firmer basis. The death of the Regent, in 1723, who expired suddenly, as he was sitting by the fireside conversing with his mistress, the Duchess de Phalaris, deprived him of that hope, and he was reduced to lead his former life of gambling. He was more than once obliged to pawn his diamond, the sole remnant of his vast wealth, but successful play generally enabled him to redeem it. Being persecuted by his creditors at Rome, he proceeded to Copenhagen, where he received permission from the English ministry to reside in his native country, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... woman," he explained to Pierre, "needed an advance of ten francs to get a mattress out of pawn; and I didn't have the money by me at the time. But I've since procured it. She lives in the house, you know, in silent poverty, on so small an income that it hardly keeps her ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... of the church get into such ill repair that rain came through the holes on to their heads when they were singing; and would my lord bishop please to look at the holes in their clothes and tell her to provide them with new ones? Other wicked prioresses used sometimes even to pawn the plate and jewels of the convent, to get money for their own private purposes. But Eglentyne was not at all wicked or dishonest, though she was a bad manager; the fact was that she had no head ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... original—that the Kaiser ought to be sent to Devil's Island. But that I told him would be an insult to Dreyfus, who was insulted enough. The proper place for the beast is the zoo. At the same time, the fellow is only a pawn. The blame rests on Rome—rests on her ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... conversation. This was rather nice calculating, but Murray Bradshaw always calculated. With most men life is like backgammon, half skill, and half luck, but with him it was like chess. He never pushed a pawn without reckoning the cost, and when his mind was least busy it was sure to be half a dozen moves ahead of the game ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... book of games the reader will find that the players for various reasons are penalized or required to pay a forfeit. When a player is so fined he must immediately surrender some pocketpiece or personal belonging as a pawn or security which may later be redeemed when "Blind Justice" passes the ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... turned up at Elliott Brothers' prompt to time. He had had a big ducking, a rattle on his shoulder, and not much sleep; but he was as hard as nails, and looked none the worse for his adventure. He had also purchased a pair of boots from a pawn-shop in Skinner's Hole. They were not up to much, for one and sevenpence was the total sum the scout could raise; but they covered his feet in some sort of shape, and he could do no more. Mr. Malins ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... draw out his tobacco box, the ladle for the cold snuff into his nostrils, the tongs and the priming iron. All this artillery may be of gold or silver, if he can reach to the price of it; it will be a reasonable, useful pawn at all times when the current of his money falles out to rune low. And here you must observe to know in what state tobacco is in town, better than the merchants, and to discourse of the potecaries where it is to be sold as readily ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... sooner, if you wish it," replied Barry, "but I do not want all this," and he gave back one of the bank notes. "I don't owe a cent to any one, but I have some gear of mine in pawn." ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... could you believe this of the young baggage, if you had not heard it? Good your honour, said the well-meaning gentlewoman, pity and forgive the poor girl; she is but a girl, and her virtue is very dear to her; and I will pawn my life for her, she will never be pert to your honour, if you'll be so good as to molest her no more, nor frighten her again. You saw, sir, by her fit, she was in terror; she could not help it; and though ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... that the boy might die. Cousin Willie, Mr. Peters says, has been stealing jewelry nearly ever since we came here and the police have been watching him but he did not know this and so he had grown quite foolhardy, and this morning in broad daylight he went into some sort of jewelry or pawn shop where there was only a boy watching the shop, and the boy was a cripple. Cousin Willie had planned to hide the things under his coat and to sneak out but the boy saw what he was doing and cried out, and when Cousin Willie tried to break ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... had a bad week at Lincoln and hadn't the price on him. He tried to touch me, but I passed. Then he had a go at the best man, but the best man had nothing in the world but one suit of clothes and a spare collar. Claire was broke, too, so the end of it was that the best man had to sneak out and pawn ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... Babu replied. The lama, of course, would no more have parted with his chart to a casual wayfarer than an archbishop would pawn the holy vessels of his cathedral. All Tibet is full of cheap reproductions of the Wheel; but the lama was an artist, as well as a wealthy Abbot in ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... circumstances, can desert his old master and forget his obligation of many years' employment." He replied: "Were I to speak out, I swear by generosity you would excuse me. Peradventure, my horse was without corn, and the housings of his saddle in pawn.—And the prince who, through parsimony, withholds his army's pay cannot expect it to enter heartily upon his service."—Give money to the gallant soldier that he may be zealous in thy cause, for if he is stinted of his due he will go abroad for service.—So long as a warrior ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... upon whose head is the shell to this very day; for what should he pawn them, or to whom should he sell them? In all that country where he was robbed, his jewels were not accounted of; nor did he want that relief which could from thence be administered to him. Besides, had his jewels been missing at the gate of the Celestial City, he had (and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... all things upon the earth, he hated Your person most: that he would pawn his fortunes To hopeless restitution, so he might ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... in a measure recovered from the effects of Luck's smile. He picked up the slips and glanced at them indifferently. "There's a pawn-shop just down the street, I believe," ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... and plums all pick'd, and suet all chopp'd fine, To mix into a pudding rich for all the mess to dine; I pawn'd my ear-rings for the beef, it weigh'd at least a stone, Now my fancy man is sent to sea, and I am left alone. Here's Bet and Sue Who stand here too, A shivering by my side; They both are dumb, They both look glum, And watch the ebbing tide. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... of escape from social extinction. That Hermione's marriage was a mere stake in their game did not in the least affect Garnett's view of its urgency. If on their part it was a sordid speculation, to her it had the freshness of the first wooing. If it made of her a mere pawn in their hands, it would put her, so Garnett hoped, beyond farther risk of such base uses; and to achieve this had ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... healing leaves that are hidden within, all about among the people. Let not one hungry one perish for lack of Heaven's bread while there is enough and to spare lying all about useless! "Her father took it!" What for? to learn the way to Paradise? Ah! no—to pawn for the hot liquid that must drown him in perdition. And the dealer in the dreadful traffic took it—dared to snatch from his fellow man the comforting words sent unto him by a loving God, and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... you suspect my troth, I cannot prove it but by oath; 200 And if you make a question on't, I'll pawn my soul that I have done't; And he that makes his soul his surety, I think, does give the ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... cross-country way to Falmouth because she knew that at any hour of the night she might be missed and followed and captured. They would not think of Falmouth; they would not dream that she could walk so far. In the town she would pawn Onkel Ernst's watch and take the early train to London and by evening she would be with Frau Lippheim. So she had seen it all, in ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Pots of ferns purchased from a street hawker showed greenly behind the tidiest muslin blinds you ever sor! and Mrs. William Keyse, expectant mother of a potential Briton, sat behind them, and as she patched the shirts that had been taken out of pawn—and whether they're let out on hire to parties wanting such things or whether the mice eat 'oles in 'em, who can say? but the styte in which they come back from Them Plyces is something chronic!—she sang, sometimes ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... to me a shame for a man like you to be a pawn in a game all of his life while he might be playing the ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... zeal! Thou hast been a pawn for her to play during these months. Long ago had she surrendered if thou ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... famine raged, sweeping off large numbers of the poor, while the unscrupulous Bigot and his satellites were revelling in shameless profligacy. It is midnight of Christmas, when an old officer, M. de Rochebrune, pressed with cold and hunger to the last point, resolved to pawn his St. Louis Cross of gold at the Intendant's Palace stores. On the way thither the officer and his young daughter, a young girl of fourteen, are startled at the blaze of light illuminating the Palace windows, during one of the Intendant's ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... drink of porter and a crack would do his old heart good. Accordingly, I made Nanse send the bit lassie, our servant, Jenny Heggins, for a couple of bottles of Deacon Jaffrey's best brown stout, asking if he could pawn his word anent its being genuine, as it was for a gentleman in delicate health. So, brushing the saw-dust off the doup of one of them, and slipping it into my coat pocket, which was gey an' large, I popped at leisure up the close to pay my neighbour ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... enough, just as Tom Van Dorn worshiped the power that bought him, so the old spider, peering through the broken, rotting meshes of what was once his web, felt the power to which it was fastened, felt the power that moved him as a mere pawn in a game whose direction he did not conceive; and Dan'l Sands, in spite of his silent rage, worshiped the power ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... cap. 41. where he writes of Carloman, who held his Great Council then at Worms.——"To this Placitum (says he) came Hugo, and preferred his Petition for that Part of the Kingdom, which his Brother Lewis (in Locarium acceperat) had rented of him, or received in Pawn." ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... sir, I swear. I bought it of a gentleman who came in just now, and would not pawn it. I thought it was his, so that if you belong to the Force, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Pawn-brokers' establishments, distinguished by the mystic symbol of the three golden balls, were conveniently accessible; though what personal property these wretched people could possess, capable of being estimated in silver or copper, so as to afford a basis ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... that they lied and shammed to me just as I did to my customers, and their insincerities were only another source of repugnance to me. But I frequented them in spite of it all, in spite of myself. I spent on them more than I could afford. Sometimes I would borrow money or pawn something for the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... was coming to-night to kill him. To-night sometime the world would stop for him. He felt no longer a personal entity—he was merely part of a situation. It was as if he were a piece in a chess problem—any moment the player might move and solve the play by taking a pawn. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... houses, some of which were at least three centuries old. But there swarmed in upon, and submerged them, thousands of criminals, beggars, and the miserably poor and degraded of many nationalities. Businesses that fatten on misfortune—the saloon, pawn, old clothes and cheap food shops-lined the squalid Cowgate. Palaces were cut up into honeycombs of tall tenements. Every stair was a crowded highway; every passage a place of deposit for filth; almost every room sheltered a half famished family, in darkness and ancient dirt. ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... both regiments were ordered to the Castle?" Several said, "They would be safe, and always had been safe." "As safe," said Gray, "without the troops as with them." And Irving said, "They never had been in danger, and he would pawn his life that they should receive no injury." "Unless the troops were removed," it was said, "before evening there would be ten thousand men on the Common." "The people in general," Tyler said, "were resolved to have the troops removed, without which they would not be satisfied; that, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... without flattery or ingratiation, had won for him the friendship of the greatest men in the country. He knew every move in the gigantic game which was being played solely for his attention, long before a pawn was lifted from its place, a single counter changed; he had known it, from the moment that the seemingly unimportant paragraph had met his eyes; and he also knew the men who sat in the game, whose hands passed over the great chessboard of current events, ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... might have imagined my distress, sent his account late last night, saying he wanted to make up a large bill, and he wished I would let him have all, or part of the payment. Heaven knows, I have not a farthing in the house; but I will send poor little Nanny to pawn my silver spoons, for, alas! I have no other means ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... and others escape by claiming to be married, sick, or bound to religion. As a consequence, the country has fallen into disrepute, and men of the requisite valor and quality do not go there, but only a very few poor, unarmed, and worthless men. If any of these do have weapons, they pawn or sell them for clothes and food. Their needs constrain them to commit injuries upon the natives, so that the latter are irritated. It is said that not only is there no increase in what has been conquered, but that even that pacification is becoming more ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... asked me to do it, or expected me to do it. I did it, as I have said, in obedience to the code I had learned along with all the other things connected with John Barleycorn. In distress, when a man has no other place to turn, when he hasn't the slightest bit of security which a savage-hearted pawn-broker would consider, he can go to some saloon-keeper he knows. Gratitude is inherently human. When the man so helped has money again, depend upon it that a portion will be spent across the bar of the ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... confined to carrying away the property of another with the intent of appropriation, but comprises also all corporeal dealing with the property of another against the will of the owner. Thus, for a pawnee to use the thing which he has in pawn, or to use a thing committed to one's keeping as a deposit, or to put a thing which is lent for use to a different use than that for which it was lent, is theft; to borrow plate, for instance, on the representation that the borrower is going to entertain his friends, and ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... apparition. "I trailed you. Why"—he interrupted himself—"didn't you get my telephones? Why, somebody took the message—twice. Cost three dollars—had to pawn stuff to pay it. Then I trailed you. The rector had your address. We're going to Scotland bang off and I had to see you. ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray

... his sister was a woman, and would in all probability tell the woman down-stairs and her son about it, and that it would be none of their business whether he worked for a man who was honest enough, or hard up enough, to pawn his watch to pay him his month's salary or not. He was conscious of sentiments of loyalty both to himself and to Carroll. During the next two weeks he often strolled in the neighborhood of the office and stood looking up at the familiar windows. One day he saw some men carrying away ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Don't worry about him. He's only a cipher—a pawn in the great game we have in hand. If we win, it'll be for a prize worth winning—fame and fortune," went on Zuker, as he strode to and fro with rapid strides. "Yes, fame and fortune, and we shall have dealt a staggering blow at a country that we hate. The risk is ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... over to himself—and his thoughts ran: "You astonishingly attractive devil. You have all the pride of my father, the Emperor. How he would have gloried in you! You are enough to drive any man mad: you shall be a pawn in my game for the winning of my lady and gain happiness for yourself, so in the end, Elinka, if she is able to see from where she has gone, will not say I ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... his wife and children, who consequently only just keep body and soul together by going to the national cantines, where they get soup, and to the Mairies, where they occasionally get an order for bread. Almost all their clothes are in pawn, so how it is they do not positively die of cold I cannot understand. As for fuel even the wealthy find it difficult to procure it. The Government talks of cutting down all the trees and of giving up all the clothes in ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... existence!" Forgetting, of course, the lonesome hours of more or less baffling effort that he spent that day upon a manuscript before he locked up his workshop. And the years he spent in drudgery, the bales of rejection slips he collected, the times that he had to pawn his watch and stick pin to buy a dinner or to pay the rent of a ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... but just sufficient for the preservation of life. And perhaps he would have remained much longer in this distressful state, had not a compassionate gentleman, upon hearing this circumstance related, ordered his cloaths to be taken out of pawn, and enabled him to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... to explain, George. You have only to act on Rayne's instructions. The matter does not concern you as, after all, you're only a pawn in this merry little game which will do no harm ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... and gave David Prince four trade dollars in change for a ten-dollar bill, and the two men went out, leaving Mr. Isaacs free to attend to a timid woman in black who had just come in to raise fifty cents upon a ring, while Mrs. Isaacs looked after a carpenter who proposed to pawn his ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... that had gone before him in the Marylebone meadows. Then he had been its enemy; now by a queer contortion of the mind he thought of himself as the only protector of that cold clay under the bed—honoured in life, but in death a poor pawn in a rogue's cause. He stood a little apart from the others near the door, and his eyes sought it furtively. He was not in the plot, and yet the plotters did not trouble about him. They assumed his complaisance. Doubtless they knew ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... said imperiously, pushing him away. "Let no man forget that while the life is in Red Jabez he holds thy lives in pawn. When his spirit goes, ye ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... Johnston rode his horse out of the stable gate, old Robin walked at his side. Just in front of the pawn-shop Robin pulled out his ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... nonchalance five pounds upon her mother's watch. She had no idea that she ought to dispute the dictum of the bald young man with the fishy eyes and the high collar. It did not occur to her that she was paid too little. What she realized was that she had wanted to pawn something all her life—it was a deliciously effective extremity. She reserved her rings with the distinct purpose of having the experience again. Then she made a substantial lunch at a rather expensive restaurant. "It isn't time yet," she thought, "for crusts and dripping," and tipped ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... that "appearance of complicity" that wrote the anguish on his face: the fact that he could not prevent, and saw no way but to have a sort of hand in, things his nature loathed. In truth he appears to us now rather like a pawn, played down the board by some great Chess-player in the Unseen: moving by no volition or initiative of its own through perils and peace-takings to Queenhood on the seventh square. But we know that ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... thigh hilariously. "That I had an errand on hand. A good joke, split me, Roxholm! Come with me; I go to see the picture of a beauty, stole by the painter, who is always drunk, and with his clothes in pawn, and lives in a garret ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself. Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawn-ticket; alienating crown domains, winking hard at robber barons, and the like—and after a few years, went home to Moravia, leaving Brandenburg to shift for itself, under a Statthalter (Viceregent, more ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... yet met George Pennicut. And George, pawn of fate, was even now waiting round the corner ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... a man of genius, rid of sentiment and hope, believing in nothing but himself, to whom come, as from the darkness, all the violent questions of life and death. "Fathers and Children" is simply an exposure of our power to mould our own lives. Bazarov is a man of astonishing intellect—he is the pawn of an emotion he despises; he is a man of gigantic will—he can do nothing but destroy his own beliefs; he is a man of intense life—he cannot avoid the first, brainless touch of death. It is the hopeless fight of ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... something of the temper of its people. The fall of Huerta was potent proof that no ruler could survive in Mexico if the Government at Washington was set in opposition to him. After all, the life of Yeager was only a small matter. Why not use him as a pawn in the game to win the approval of the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... chambers. Isis Unveiled. Their Pali book we tried to pawn. Crosslegged under an umbrel umbershoot he thrones an Aztec logos, functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma. The faithful hermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship, ringroundabout him. Louis H. Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies tend them ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... storm and shower, The pen's the wonder-working power); Or Smith, the master of "Addresses," Carves history out in modern messes:— Tells how gay Charles cook'd up his collops, How fleeced his friends, how paid his trollops— How pledged his soul, and pawn'd his oath, 'Till none would give a straw for both; And touching paupers for the Evil, Touch'd England half way to the devil Or Hook, picks up my favorite hits, For when was friendship between wits? Or Lyster, doubly dandyfied, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... his clothes are not seedy and torn, and his shoes down at the heel; but by what process of reasoning will they prove that he is no gentleman? Is he not learned? Has he not generosity and courage? Whilst a hack author, does he pawn the books entrusted to him to review? Does he break his word to his publisher? Does he write begging letters? Does he get clothes or lodgings without paying for them? Again, whilst a wanderer, does he insult helpless women on the road with loose proposals or ribald discourse? Does he take what is ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... left to me. He will tell me how to pawn my watch," he thought, touching his watch ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... think any thief in his right mind would do that!" declared Sandy. "What could he do with a Little Brass God? He couldn't pawn it, or sell it, or trade it, without its being traced back ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... about me, my lads," said Henry with offensive patronage. "I can take care of myself all right. You ain't seen me come aboard so drunk that I've tried to get down the foc'sle without shoving the scuttle back. You never knew me to buy a bundle o' forged pawn-tickets. ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... There was a general feeling that I didn't know what I wanted—house or flat, north or south of the Park, all the rest of it—; they said there would be a scandal if I employed a young maid, I couldn't afford two, and an old one would pawn my clothes to buy gin. I am quoting your husband now; I know nothing of business. Every one agreed, too, that I must have a drain of some kind. Would you say it took long to find a bed-sitting room with ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... Samuel Boyse, for example, whose poem on the Deity is quoted with high praise by Fielding. Once Johnson had generously exerted himself for his comrade in misery, and collected enough money by sixpences to get the poet's clothes out of pawn. Two days afterwards, Boyse had spent the money and was found in bed, covered only with a blanket, through two holes in which he passed his arms to write. Boyse, it appears, when still in this position would lay ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... Lorton, after this you'll have to give me the odds of a pawn; you've beaten me seven games out ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... the king himself," said the Mussulmans. A unanimous cry of indignation arose amongst the crusaders. "We would rather," said Geoffrey de Sargines, "that we had been all slain, or taken prisoners by the Saracens, than be reproached with having left our king in pawn." All negotiation was broken off; and on the 5th of April, 1250, the crusaders decided ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... miles to the city. I decided, like Queen Isabella, to pawn my jewels to enable me to discover America again. I had an old ring and I met a darky who had a quarter. He got my ring. After tramping all day I was exhausted. I came to a negro cabin and went in and offered the "mammy" a pound of bacon for a pound of corn pone. I further bargained ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... lads, and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er. Hear the Stars of Morning shouting: "Two and Two are Four." Though the creeds and realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn our watches, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... giving you your own way on every point, and letting you ride rough-shod over us without a protest? He requires consideration and tact and a degree of courtesy—none of which you possess. And you can't drag him away from his writing to go to the morgue or a pawn-shop with you the way you did me in Europe. And most of all he must have quiet. Gee whiz! There will be hours together when you must ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... stranger, taking out a purse. 'Take this six pounds ten and that lot of pawn tickets, and send somebody to the pawnbroker's to bring the ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... Case." It consisted merely of a series of numbered documents, widely different in nature, presented with neither introduction nor comment by the authors. The series contained clippings from various newspapers, personal letters, I. O. U's, race-track reports, pawn-tickets, letter-heads, telegrams, theatre programmes, advertisements, receipted bills, envelopes, etc. In spite of the diversity of these materials, the authors succeeded in fabricating a narrative ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... could ever be justified in history at all." But if the exclusion of Ulster was to be offered, he would immediately go to Belfast and lay the proposal before his followers. He did not intend "that Ulster should be a pawn in any political game," and would not allow himself to be manoeuvred into a position where it could afterwards be said that Ulster had resorted to arms to secure something that had been rejected when offered by legislation. The sympathy of Ulstermen with Loyalists in other parts of Ireland was ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... schemes hopelessly miscarried. Gantheaume did not elude Cornwallis, and remained shut up in Brest. Missiessy escaped from Rochefort, sailed to the West Indies, where he did some damage and then sailed home again. "He had taken a pawn and returned to his own square."[328] Villeneuve slipped out from Toulon (January 19th, 1805), while Nelson was sheltering from westerly gales under the lee of Sardinia; but the storm which promised to renew ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... absorbed in his own ulterior purpose as to regard this man in the light of a means toward its accomplishment. Now Emmet stood before him again, haying taken him at his word, innocent of his original position as a pawn in another's game. He was not one who deserved to be so regarded, and Leigh felt this, though a greater interest had hitherto interfered with his appreciation. There was an element of discovery in this second meeting that ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... give you away by telling his name; and anyhow he couldnt have brought himself to buy himself off and leave me there; so hes doing his time. Well, it was two forty shillingses; and Ive only twenty-eight shillings in the world. If I pawn my clothes I shant be able to earn any more. So I cant pay the fine and get him out; but if youll stand 3 pounds I'll stand one; and thatll do it. If youd like to be very kind and nice you could pay the lot; ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw

... the Turks concluded by the Rumanian rulers with neighbouring princes during the Middle Ages were not made in pursuance of any definite policy, but merely to meet the moment's need. With the establishment of Turkish suzerainty Rumania became a pawn in the foreign politics of the neighbouring empires, and we find her repeatedly included in their projects of acquisition, partition, or compensation (as, for instance, when she was put forward as eventual compensation ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... 'em gets no more, and is not so bad off,—leastways does not show it as he does. But father won't let 'em want, now he knows. Yo' see, Boucher's been pulled down wi' his childer,—and her being so cranky, and a' they could pawn has gone this last twelvemonth. Yo're not to think we'd ha' letten 'em clem, for all we're a bit pressed oursel'; if neighbours doesn't see after neighbours, I dunno who will.' Bessy seemed almost afraid lest Margaret should think they had not the will, and, to a certain ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... three stony at the time and had to borrow it from another girl who is going in for logic honours, but she's quite rich, so it doesn't matter. Hilda didn't want to, and said she'd give her two gold safety pins, which she got last Christmas, if Selby-Harrison would pawn them for her. But he wouldn't, and I thought it was hardly worth while for the sake of one and fourpence, besides making her mother more furious than ever. We ought not to have had to borrow more than fourpence, for Selby-Harrison ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... evasively. "On the contrary, we have just got our first good clue. No, McCormick, your theory will not hold water. The real point is to find this missing bookkeeper at any cost. You must persuade him to confess what he knows. Offer him immunity - he was only a pawn in the ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... icily. "I am a mere pawn, I presume, to be sent where I am wanted. But I would like to ask Mr. Clinton if he found out anything about Fran, while he ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... he shrank, naturally, from adding so ignoble an item to the weight of disrepute under which The Patriot already lay, in her mind. Sooner or later he must face the question from her of why he had not resigned rather than put his honor in pawn to the baser uses of the newspaper and its owner's ambitions. To that question there could be no answer. He could not throw the onus of it upon her, by revealing to her that the necessity of protecting her name against the befoulment of The Searchlight was the compelling motive of his passivity. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... hands with a rush of melancholy and tender feeling inexpressible in words, and went their separate ways; Lucien to fetch his manuscript, Daniel d'Arthez to pawn his watch and buy a couple of faggots. The weather was cold, and his new-found friend should find a fire in ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... resolved to obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle of the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the game of chess, which had already spread from Persia to Greece. "The queen (he spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and herself as a pawn. That pusillanimous female submitted to pay a tribute, the double of which she ought to have exacted from the Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits of your injustice, or abide the determination of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... pawn it for thirty days, mother. By that time I should be able to redeem it with the profits of ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... originally came, and there they were recast. Their music—perhaps the most characteristic of all the city's characteristic sounds—has been called "the voice of Charleston." Of the silver only a few fragments have been returned. One piece was found in a pawn shop in New York, and another in a small town in Ohio. Mais que ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... fetched his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel; Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn With droppings of the barrel; And those that hardly all the year Had bread to eat, or rags to wear, Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And all the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... (whose meetings, which were not Dinners generally, were held on Saturdays) that much chaff and practical joking were indulged in, and that was one reason for my non-attendance. On one occasion when Albert Smith wanted his hat and umbrella on leaving the Club, the attendant presented him pawn-tickets for the articles. He was extremely annoyed, sent the man for a policeman, and gave the whole Club into custody; and they had to pay the redemption price, besides looking very foolish. It was Horace Mayhew told me of this." It has been said that this was the last straw ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... unguardedly moving the pawn that held at bay a big white bishop, who immediately swooped down on her queen, and away it went off the board; and "oh, how perfectly dreadful!" all in one and ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... was her own. Her mother had given it her, and she had had it for five years. It was to get the tankard out of pawn that she had taken Kerrel's waistcoats, needing thirty shillings. The blood on the handle was due to ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... to a pepperbox. Marked "Ell's Patent." The cataloguer has never before seen a pistol of this type. Good condition. .31 Cal. Purchased in a Philadelphia pawn-shop, and said to be a favorite arm of the Negroes in that city ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker

... of things went on for three years before the king found any means of sending news of himself to his dear queen, but at last he contrived to send this letter: 'Sell all our castles and palaces, and put all our treasures in pawn and come and deliver me out of ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... of the strange vague world outside, where people of forbidden faith carved forbidden images. But he never went outside; at least never more than a few streets, for what should he do in Venice? As he grew old enough to be useful, his father employed him in his pawn-shop, and for recreation there was always the synagogue and the study of the Bible with its commentaries, and the endless volumes of the Talmud, that chaos of Rabbinical lore and legislation. And when he approached his thirteenth year, he began to prepare ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the Lady what h' had done, And what he meant to carry on; What project 'twas he went about, When SIDROPHEL and he fell out; His firm and stedfast Resolution, 135 To swear her to an execution; To pawn his inward ears to marry her, And bribe the Devil himself to carry her; In which both dealt, as if they meant Their Party-Saints to represent, 140 Who never fail'd upon their sharing In any prosperous arms-bearing To lay themselves out to supplant Each other Cousin-German Saint. But, ere the Knight ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... day of the new year, which at this time of Court revelry showed that the matter must indeed be pressing, I received those particulars for which I had asked, together with a list of the lands and tenements that Sir Robert Aleys was ready to put in pawn on behalf of his friend and relative, the lord Deleroy. Why should he do this, I wondered? There could only be one answer: because he and not Deleroy was to receive the money, ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... exclaimed, "that you could not let me know yesterday! Today is Sunday; it will be impossible for me to get at any money. Raymond is certain only to have a pound or two on him, if he has as much; the Bank is closed. I have some jewellery by me on which I could easily raise ten or twelve pounds, but the pawn-shops are not open on Sundays. What am I to do? Can you not ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... of the game, when Mamma sat stone-still, hypnotised by the green and white chequers, her curved hand lifted, holding her pawn, her head quivering ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... rattle, and the six continents and the seven seas would pulse their blood into the city and be flushed by her radiating tides. Into this hidden activity Myra stepped, deaf and blind to all but the clamor of her heart and a single man walking like a black pawn aureoled in the low ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... Individual is nothing but a pawn, an accessory to the Church. It was and is the Church first, last, and all the time. The Individual can claim no right nor prerogative except as a ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... Goa on the news being received of the events at Diu, which were carried thither by Diego Rodriguez de Azevedo, who likewise carried a message from Don Juan de Castro requesting the city to lend him 20,000 pardaos for the use of the army, sending a lock of his whiskers in pawn for the faithful repayment of the money. The city respectfully returned the proposed pledge, and sent him more money than he wanted, and even the ladies of Goa on this occasion sent him their earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and other jewels to be applied to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... went further than this. His was a fine instinct for organization. He used Barry like a fat pawn, moved down to the king row, until the boss alderman was able to look abroad on his noble army of small officeholders and contractors, who could be trusted, not only to vote as directed (for to vote is a simple and ineffectual thing), but also to bring up their hundreds ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... he was justified by his experience. It was a dreary story. He would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the clothes would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave up a paying contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid jobs. "A bad job was as good as a good job for me," he said; "it all went the same way." Once the wife showed signs of amendment; she kept steady for weeks on end; it was again ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the city was set to work watching the pawn-shops and jewelry stores where the thief might try to dispose of the stolen property. Every ship-yard and boat-yard was searched for the identification of the "dog," but without success, and almost every mechanical ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... arch. Testimony of another policeman that, when arrested at midnight, Evan had said: "Yes; I took the ring off his finger. I found him there dead .... I know I oughtn't to have done it.... I'm an educated man; it was stupid to pawn the ring. I found him with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... my steps, but the bundle had disappeared. The clothes were, in themselves, of small value, but they constituted the whole of my wardrobe; and I now reflected that they were capable of being transmuted, by the pawn or sale of them, into food. There were other wretches as indigent as I was, and I consoled myself by thinking that my shirts and stockings might furnish a seasonable covering to their nakedness; but there was a relic concealed within this bundle, the loss of which ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... inimical at heart. Indeed, intelligence of some act of disaffection was continually coming to General Walker; and thereupon he would oust the offender, confiscate his estate to the government, and, perhaps, grant it to some one of his officers, or pawn it to foreign sympathizers for military stores. The neighborhood of Rivas was dotted with ranch-houses, distenanted by these means,—rank grass growing in the court-yards, the cactus-hedges gapped, and the crops swept away by the foragers. Perhaps, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... the commandant of that town, I believe General Beauvoir, was a great chess-player, and he expressed a wish to play a game with him: General Beauvoir asked him to point out any particular pawn with which he would be checkmated; adding, that if the pawn were taken, he, Bonaparte, should be declared the winner. Bonaparte pointed out the last pawn on the left of his adversary. A mark was put upon ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... from which I obtained my food, told me that as I was a perfect stranger to him he could not afford, to keep me any longer on credit. What security could I give him for further food? This was a poser, but the end of it was that I left my whole kit in pawn with him, including even my watch. At length, on the twelfth morning after my arrival the sea became calm enough for me to proceed, and with a west wind I was in Guernsey Harbour four hours after leaving Braye. I think this was the most adventurous voyage I ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... the most admirable and practical charities established in the Mexican capital is known as the Monte de Piedad, which is simply a national pawn-shop. The title signifies, "The Mountain of Mercy." It was originally founded more than a century since by Count Regla, the owner of the famous silver mine of Real del Monte, who gave the sum of three hundred thousand dollars for the purpose, in order that the poor and ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... are not cheating anybody? The pawnshop is a most honorable and useful institution. No one is the worse for it, and many a one the better. Even the tradespeople will be a trifle the better. I shall be quite proud to know that I have a pawn-ticket in my pocket to fall back upon. Oh, there's that old silk dress your mother sent me—I do believe that would bring more. It is in good condition, and looks quite respectable. If Eve had got into a scrape like ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald

... told you that Colvin is gone; however, he is coming back again; has left clothes in pawn to me.—Ever ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the foundations of his life were shaken. He had never experienced such a feeling before. He did not think it was fear; rather it was awesomeness. For a moment he regarded life, his own life, from a new standpoint. He was only a pawn on a chess-board, one of a million of human beings, none of whom had any personality, any will. Life and death were nothing. Each had to fill his place, and to do what was allotted ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... deliver to me your letter, knows nothing about me, nor who I am. . . . Change your name, and, in fine, keep as private as possible, till I tell you what is to be done.' Harrington failed, and lay for months in pawn at Venice, pouring out his griefs in letters to Goring. He was a ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... kept three; and more by token Kitty must have a new pair of boots this winter; she's positively indecent the way she goes about now. I can't help it, Hilary; you must pawn ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... deposit, vulgarly known as a pawn-ticket, issued by one Simpson to William Beauvoir, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various



Words linked to "Pawn" :   assistant, cat's-paw, helper, chess, hock, instrument, mercantilism, chess game, help, pawn ticket, commercialism, pledge



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