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Pawn   /pɔn/   Listen
Pawn

verb
(past & past part. pawned; pres. part. pawning)
1.
Leave as a guarantee in return for money.  Synonyms: hock, soak.



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"Pawn" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 wait ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... ball with the eye of an eagle, but without straining; I played with the precision of a man with an unerring system, though my selections were really made quite at random; and I handled my bets with the sureness and swift dexterity with which a chess-master places his pawn or piece in position to ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... it to him. 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 ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... said a word, nor moved. Sir Tancred was trying to see how to work the affair on seven shillings, and debating whether to call in the help of the police. Instinct assured him that he had no time to lose, no time to walk to Beachley and pawn his watch, that he must not lose sight of them, and in delicate matters he relied chiefly on instinct. Mr. Biggleswade would not have looked so triumphant, had not the 4000 pound reward satisfied him; it seemed likely that ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... centuries, to our own contemporary. Inherited qualities move along their several paths not unlike the pieces in the game of chess. Sometimes the character of the son can be traced directly to that of the father or of the mother, as the pawn's move carries him from one square to the next. Sometimes a series of distinguished fathers follows in a line, or a succession of superior mothers, as the black or white bishop sweeps the board on his own color. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... himself. A report was heard, said the journal, and the Civil Guard arriving, found the man prostrate with blood pouring from his ear, a revolver by his side. He was transported to the hospital, the sacrament administered, and he died. In his pockets they found a letter, a pawn-ticket, a woman's bracelet, and some peppermint lozenges. He was thirty-five years old. The newspaper moralised as follows: 'When even the illustrious order to which the defunct belonged is tainted with such a crime, it is well to ask whither tends the incredulity ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... Duke of Monmouth," he said, "who is the pawn in Shaftesbury's game. My Lord would give the world to have the Duke declared legitimate, and so oust James. His Grace of Monmouth is something of a popular hero now, after his doings in Scotland, and most ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... coat from the pawn-shop before he left, that she had noticed. Here was his old one. What rustled under her hand ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Nevada, and who drank up what he had made with the boys who have long since passed away. As a hopeless sot he visited the gold cure at Los Gatos. Not finding much relief, he walked over to Palo Alto to borrow of me his fare to San Francisco. He said that he was going to pawn his goods for a fare to Nevada, where he meant to kill himself. Whether he did so or not, I do not know; for ten years have gone by and I have ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... said Mahin, when Mitia telling him about his troubles, showed the coupon and the fifty kopeks, and added that he wanted nine roubles more. "We might, of course, go and pawn your watch. But we might do something far better." And ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... from his pouch a small roll like a cartridge of tobacco-leaves, and taking a bite off the end of it, to convince them that it was it—the "pawn"—which had imparted to his saliva such ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... cow gives milk—Jack saw the plums hanging—Prince William the First was a great thinker. Don't you see, Walter, it's as easy as rolling off of a log. Go ahead and tell something, or else you won't get your pawn." ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... I'le pawn my Life, that what I said, Appears e're long a truth Infallible, And your own Eyes will ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne

... was the tale Told with much bluster, Over ale And oaths, At Charles Town. He swore he saw the Indians in the dawn, And he'd be danged! And by Christ's Mother— Take his rings in pawn! But he was hanged With poor Stede Bonnet, ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... know whether or no, I should offer an excuse for the communication I am about to make; but the matter I have to relate is simply this: Being hard up last night (for though a rich man's son I often lack money), I went to a certain pawn-shop in the Bowery where I had been told I could raise money on my prospects. This place—you may see it sometime, so I will not enlarge upon it—did not strike me favorably; but, being very anxious for a certain definite sum of money, I wrote my name in a book which was brought to ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... bitter, his treasury was empty. Whence, he asked himself, was money forthcoming for this mad scheme? Isabella, however, had done with prudence and caution. "If there is not money enough in Aragon," she cried, "I will undertake this adventure for my own kingdom of Castile, and if need be I will pawn my ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... next morning at break of day we arrived in Elbing, we found our money exhausted by the lavish use of the express coach, and were compelled to return; we discovered, moreover, that even by using the ordinary coach we should be obliged to pawn the sugar-basin and cake-dish. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... smile on his face the husband went away. It is a fine instance of the irony of fate, when a woman is obliged to pawn her jewels in order to help someone escape whom she has loved, and whom she would love still to see about her,—to send him a hundred miles ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... some of my richest experiences have been in exploring with Jimmie tiny second-hand shops, pawn-shops, and dark, almost squalid corners, where, amid piles of rubbish, we found some really exquisite treasures. Mrs. Jimmie and Bee would have been afraid they would catch leprosy if they had gone with us on some of our expeditions, but Jimmie and I trusted in that Providence ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... Squash has fetched his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel; Brisk Ned 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 ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... thou flatly keep from me my Father's heritage, then, intrusted to thee in his hour of death? Regardless of God and man, and of the last look of a dying Brother? Uncle worse than pawnbroker; for it is a heritage with NO pawn on it, with much the reverse!" thought the Nephew,—and stabbed said Uncle down dead; having gone across with him in the boat; attendants looking on in distraction from the other side of the river. Was called Johannes PARRICIDA in consequence; fled out ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... have the pleasure of giving you a game?" he asked in excellent English, bowing slightly as he spoke, and moving a pawn with his long ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... say, writes well—his genius true, You pawn your word for him—he'll vouch for you. So two poor knaves, who find their credit fail, To cheat the world, become each ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... couldn't give them up, Billy. I love them too dearly. So I lie, and toady, and write drivelling talks about things I don't understand, for drivelling women to listen to, and I still have the creature comforts of life. I pawn my self-respect for them—that's all. Such a little price to pay, isn't ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... shop, and obtained with perfect 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 ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... if 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... aristocratic licence proved as mischievous as royal incompetence; and on the death of Christopher II. the whole kingdom was on the verge of dissolution. Eastern Denmark was in the hands of one magnate; another magnate held Jutland and Fnen in pawn; the dukes of Schleswig were practically independent of the Danish crown; the Scandian provinces had (1332) ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... to get all excited, Mary V. Sit down here and stop for-gracious-saking, and tell dad and Bill what it is you've seen. If it's anything that'll help run down them horse thieves, you'll get that Norman car, kitten, if I have to pawn my watch." Sudden gave Bill a lightened look of hope, and pulled Mary V down beside him on the striped porch swing. Then he snorted at something he saw. "What's the riding breeches and boots ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... cherry lip Would be glad to pawn his arrows; Venus here to take a sip Would sell her doves and team of sparrows. But they shall not so; Hey nonny, nonny no! None but I this lip must owe; ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... to pawn my watch to get away from Chicago, for the police failed to find my pretty widow. The thought of getting again under my mother's wing was as welcome as my desire to get away from it had been eager. At night my dreams ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... 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

... all the usual pomp and ceremony; he then left Bohemia never to return. Officially this Charles' coronation seems to count for nothing in the history of Austria into which that of Bohemia was merged. Bohemia became for years a pawn in the stern game between Maria Theresia and Frederick of Prussia, and St. Vitus suffered damage from the latter's guns; the glory of Golden Prague had departed and the stately cathedral looked down for nearly three centuries on a city that had ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... consider him in the desired light, made Ned very wroth; and in revenge he went out, and, between drink and gaming, rid himself of every penny he possessed. He thereupon begged that Madge would let him pawn some of her jewelry. She refused to do so; until their ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... That cruel Dr. Vincent, though he 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

... jersey of Alice's—why, I should stew to death in it. Oh, I know—I can give it to my batman. The fellows tell me you can always get rid of things to your batman. It's like sending your wedding-presents to the pawn-shop. But where is father?' The boy looked discontentedly at his watch. 'He vowed he'd be here by five. I must be off by a ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... thus to be furnished they proposed to give Ostend and Sluys as pledge of payment. According to this scheme the elector palatine, John Casimir, had promised to furnish, equip, and pay 2000 cavalry, taking the town of Maestricht and the country of Limburg, when freed from the enemy, in pawn for his disbursements; while Antwerp and Brabant had agreed to supply 300,000 crowns in ready money for immediate use. Many powerful politicians opposed this policy, however, and urged reliance upon France, "so that this course seemed to be lame in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... on Saturday, chickens, ducks, and geese, which they eat for supper; and in some instances, bottled porter and wine. Yet, so little have they beforehand in the world, that if the works were to stop, they would begin within a fortnight to pawn the little furniture of their cottages, and their clothes, for subsistence ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... Montford's mysterious searches and inquiries for the woman Monday had something of deep import in them. Mag Munday's strange disappearance from Charleston, and her previous importuning for the old dress left in pawn with McArthur, were not to be overlooked. These things taken together, and Mr. Snivel saw a case there could be no mistaking. That case became stronger when his fashionable friend engaged his services to trace out what had become of the woman Mag Munday, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... six small silver-gilt spoons from her bag (they were old Roualt's wedding present), begging him to pawn them at once for her, and Leon obeyed, though the proceeding annoyed him. He was afraid ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... the Bull-Queen is divested, We shall be in every way Hunted, stripped, exposed, molested; 140 Let us do whate'er we may, That she shall not be arrested. QUEEN, we entrench you with walls of brawn, And palisades of tusks, sharp as a bayonet: Place your most sacred person here. We pawn 145 Our lives that none a finger dare to lay on it. Those who wrong you, wrong us; Those who hate you, hate us; Those who sting you, sting us; Those who bait you, bait us; 150 The ORACLE is now about to be Fulfilled by circumvolving destiny; Which says: 'Thebes, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... capital, and a bundle of garments of rather uncertain style as baggage, and the pawn-ticket for a rather good suit-case as insurance, Mr. and Mrs. Seth Appleby established themselves in a "furnished housekeeping room" on Avenue B, and prepared to reconquer New York. It was youth's hopeful sally. They had everything to gain. Yet they ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... demonstration. She was simply a beast of burden, patient, and making small complaint, and adding to the intermittent family income in any way she could,—charing, tailoring, or sack-making when the machine was not in pawn, and standing in deadly terror of Wemock's fist. The casual, like most of the lower order of laborers, has small opinion of women as a class, and meets any remonstrance from them as to his habits ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... south of the Ohio River, the sale of which land would pay the cost of three years of the war. ** On the other hand, Pelatiah Webster, patriotic economist that he was, decried in 1781 all schemes to "pawn" this vast westward region; he likened such plans to "killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in order to tear out at once all that was in her belly." He advocated the township system of compact and regular ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... the tankard 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 her having pricked ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... of Venice, should forget his Austrian interests and play the part of Italian patriot, was too gross to deceive any one. Italy, on these terms, would either continue to be governed from Vienna, or be made a pawn in the hands of its French protector. What therefore Cavour had hitherto been willing to leave to future years now became the need of the present. "Before Villafranca," in his own words, "the union of Italy was a possibility; since Villafranca it is a necessity." Victor Emmanuel understood ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... 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, had these men ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... Memoire concernant les Droites et Impositions en Europe tome i p. 73.}has established a sort of public pawn-shop, which lends money to the subjects of the state, upon pledges, at six per cent. interest. This pawn-shop, or lombard, as it is called, affords a revenue, it is pretended, to the state, of a hundred and fifty thousand crowns, which, at four and sixpence ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... period of affluence he had succeeded in establishing a little semblance of credit, he would maintain his regal style of living as long as it lasted. Then he would come down to the hall bedroom or even the ten-cent lodging house, the lunch wagon, and the pawn shop. But even at the lowest ebb of his fortunes, he never seemed to lose his cheerfulness, his good nature, his grand manners, and his easy, confident hope and conviction about the huge sums that were to come into his possession "within a ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... 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 hands of ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... Penna. American parents. Forty years old. Married. Wife dead. One child living with his sister in Pennsylvania. Carpenter by trade. Did not belong to the union. Had been out of work all winter. All his tools were in pawn. The Army had been helping him at times. Said he had to leave his child on account of not working. He looked like a very hard drinker. Had never worked in ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb

... two perrsons called Sole Bros. Brothers tryed me with the old Fiddle Trick. You take a Fiddel in a Pawn Brokers leave it with him along comes another Felow and pretends its a Stadivarious Stradivarious a valuable Fiddel. 2nd Felow offers to pay fablous sum pawnbroker says I'll see. When 1st felow comes for his fiddel pawnbroker ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... He was so poor, says Suetonius, that he had no money to take him out to Germany, when appointed to that province. He had to let his house and hire a garret for his wife and family, and to pawn one of his ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... consuming and destructive; he had contracted near three hundred thousand pounds of debt;[**] he had anticipated all his revenue; he had pawned every thing of value which belonged either to himself or his queen; he was obliged in some measure even to pawn himself to his creditors, by not sailing to England till he obtained their permission, and by promising on his word of honor to return in person, if he did ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... sure at whom the plot was aimed, though she had a suspicion that it was the Duke himself whom she was designed to capture, in order to further some unknown plans of her three protectors. She did not count her brother; she recognised him as a mere pawn in ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... L50,000 or so on a deep dock which they have not got, and the harbour is in pawn to the Board of Works, which collects the tolls, and otherwise endeavours to indemnify itself. The Harbour Board meets as usual, but it has no powers, no money, no credit, no anything. This is a fair specimen of the business management which characterises the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... aided him at first, now turned from him coldly, regarding him as a dreamer; and his own stock of money was exhausted. In his extremity he was forced to pawn all his own valuables, and even some of the trinkets of his wife. In spite of this, he felt sure that he was on the road to success, and that he would very soon be enabled to rise above his present difficulties, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... but as they began to bandy words Denver became suddenly aware that he was the cause of their feud. He and his eight hundred dollars, a sum so small that a shoestring promoter would hardly notice it; and yet these two men with their superfluity of claims were fighting for his favor like pawn-brokers. Bunker Hill had seen him first and claimed him as his right; but Professor Diffenderfer, ignoring the ethics of the game, was out to make a sale anyway. He carried in one hand a large sack of specimens, and under his arm were some weighty tomes which turned out to be Government reports. ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... clumsy hand at both, and came on board again with only a very small quantity of coffee. It, however, afforded some relief, and in the afternoon we reached the town of Dort, and, on lodging my baggage in pawn with a French inn-keeper, he advanced me the means of going on to Rotterdam, where I got cash for the bill which I had on a merchant there. Once more furnished with the "sinews of war," with my feet on terra ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... Montgomeryshyre, esquyers. Feb. 17th, delivered to Charles Legh the elder my silver tankard with the cover, all dubble gilt, of the Cowntess of Herford's gift to Francis her goddoughter, waying 22 oz. great waight, to lay in pawn in his owne name to Robert Welsham the goldsmith for 4 tyll within two dayes after May-day next. My dowghter Katharin and John Crocker and I myself (John Dee) were at the delivery of it and waying of ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee

... him in a pawnbroker's shop," said Mr. Basswood. "And the best part of it is that they caught him trying to pawn my wife's silver spoons and Laura's two rings. The pawnbroker got suspicious, and as he happened to be an honest man, he called in a detective. This detective remembered the picture he had seen printed of Link at the time ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer

... to consider whether he would not be compelled to pawn some article from his wardrobe, for he was well supplied with clothing, when he had a stroke ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger

... inflame them, and excite all my enamored cardinals to such an ecstasy that they must finally prevail upon the silly, obstinate old pope against his own will to fulfil my only desire. I will attain my end, even if I am compelled to pawn my honor and my salvation for it! Bah! honor; what can honor be to a woman? Beauty is our honor, further nothing! And fair, it seems to me, I yet am! And if I am fair," she more glowingly continued, after a pause, "how comes it that Carlo has ceased to ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... that all the cruelties of the French were by the express order of Louis Quatorze,' said Elizabeth; 'you cannot be hard on a man who gave all his money and offered to pawn his plate to bring Charles the Second back ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the lurch three days after we reached St. Louis. He said he was going on to San Francisco, and he had only money enough to pay his own expenses. As Luke and I were not provided with money, we had a pretty hard time at first, and had to pawn some of our clothes, or we should have starved. Finally I got a job in the 'Democrat' office, and a week after, Luke got something to do, though it didn't pay very well. So we scratched along as well as ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... flourishing in affluence, and at others being obliged to struggle with almost incredible difficulties. To-day wallowing in luxury, and to-morrow reduced to the coarsest and most homely fare. My fine clothes being often on my back in the evening, and at the pawn-shop ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... people, but it is with as much caution and timidity as women of quality begin to pawn their jewels; we have not ventured upon any great stone yet! The Provost of Edinburgh is in custody of a messenger; and the other day they seized an odd man, who goes by the name of Count St. Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... almost invariably justify their trade by alleging noble motives. Madame Nourrisson posed as having lost several opportunities for marriage, also three daughters who had gone to the bad, and all her illusions. She showed the pawn-tickets of the Mont-de-Piete to prove the risks her business ran; declared that she did not know how to meet the "end of the month"; she was ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... That my ability may undergo, And nobleness impose: at least, thus much; I'll pawn the little blood which I have left To save the ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare

... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... a good gun, Donna. I might be able to pawn it for enough to help out on my return trip. Of course I have a watch, but its hockable value is negative. When I was very young I was foolish enough to have my initials engraved on the case, but of course I know better now—by George, Donna girl, I ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... or chipped, with fragments of a past meal, and nickel forks—the plate of the Paris poor; a basket full of potatoes and dirty linen, with a smart gauze cap on the top; a rickety wardrobe, with a glass door, open and empty, and on the shelves sundry pawn-tickets,—this was the medley of things, dismal or pleasing, abject and handsome, that ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... I never held but as a pawn To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it, Thy ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... heard her murmur. "Poor, weak, dying Man! Fate hath been hard to thee! Thou wert too good to be the sport of such a one as I—the pawn that I must move in my play of policy! Ah, Harmachis! thou shouldst have ruled the game! Those plotting priests could give thee learning; but they could not give thee knowledge of mankind, nor fence thee against the march of Nature's law. And thou didst love me with all thy ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... seen than Milan." I could only prevent his forcing money upon me on the spot by promising that if my remittance did not come next day I would avail myself of his generous offer. Happily, the next day relief came, and I was no longer in pawn at Milan. But blessings on the head of that worthy old Scot, who must long ago have gone over to the majority! At least he nobly redeemed the character of his countrymen from the libel which makes the name of a Scotsman synonymous ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... up and met Drysdale's eyes, which had more of purpose in them than he had ever seen before. "Fancy poor Blake reading those two notes," he said, "and 'twas I brought them on him. However, he shall have the money somehow to-morrow, if I pawn my watch. I'll be even with those two some day." The two remained in conference for some time longer; it is hardly worth while to do ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... life; But voice will quiver, eyes grow dim, For her, the patient, pure young wife, The gentle girl of better days, As timid as a mountain fawn, Who used to choose untrodden ways, And place at night her rags in pawn. ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... came back to his wife without some present from a foreign clime as a tangible proof of his remembrance, and because these were usually mere curiosities, without intrinsic value, they often evaded the pawn-shop in those years of dire distress, when more negotiable articles passed irretrievably away from the family possession. And with them too, in stiff, decorous frames, are those certificates and testimonials which a master mariner always collects, together ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... bill. Now,' said Mr Tigg, 'we have heard of Fox's Book of Martyrs, I believe, and we have heard of the Court of Requests, and the Star Chamber; but I fear the contradiction of no man alive or dead, when I assert that my friend Chevy Slyme being held in pawn for a bill, beats any amount of cockfighting ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... 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 ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... has extended to the Ancre, and the Crown Prince, reduced to the position of a pawn in Hindenburg's game, maintains a precarious hold on the remote suburbs of Verdun. Well may he be sick, after nine months of futile carnage, of a name which already ranks ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... greatest ladies hither come, And ply in chariots daily; Oft pawn their jewels for a sum To venture in ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... Constable expects some pawn from you, That in this fairy circle shall rise up No fury to confound ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... 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 ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... Munchausen; with a purse always penniless, as the camp sentence runs; who thrust his men through the body as coolly as others kill wasps; who roasted a shepherd over a camp-fire for contumacy in concealing Bedouin where-abouts; yet who would pawn his last shirt at the bazaar to help a comrade in debt, and had once substituted himself for, and received fifty blows on the loins in the stead of his sworn friend, whom he loved with that love of David for Jonathan which, in Caserne life, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... myself into 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 hold your ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... Mr Linton, smiling sadly. "No, my dear sirs, that is only the first move our adversaries have made—king's pawn two squares forward; to which I have replied with queen's ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... of it is getting hold of the threepence. Sometimes you meet a pal and borrow it. Sometimes you pawn something and get it. If the Home boat's in, you go down to the quay, pick out a new chum—that's anyone from the Old Country—offer to show him round a bit, and he naturally treats you. Then ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... pawn tickets to try and cop out a poor sewing girl. (Up at door.) There is the door, go! ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... a little oratory for the Virgin Mary; and shall do so, though I should sell or pawn my books. After that I shall go to Avignon, if my strength permits. If it does not, I shall send one of my people to the Cardinal Cabassole, and to you, that you may attempt to accomplish what I have often ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... child's new boots coming up the first flight of stairs; and a squeak, squeak, squeak up the second flight of stairs; and a little girl, not twelve years old, resplendent in such tawdry finery as might have stepped out of an East End London pawn shop, presented herself framed in the doorway of the reporter's room. She plainly belonged to the immigrant section of Smelter City. The news-editor never took his eyes from Bat's copy. They were eyes made for drilling ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... a pawn to the gamesters of French and English diplomacy. Peace was proclaimed; and for the {60} sake of receiving $200,000 as dowry due his French wife, Charles of England restored to France the half continent which ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... art in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed; the tongue of the oracle never twang'd truer. Your courtier cannot kiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a bawdy-house, but he shall be straight in one of their wormwood comedies. They are grown licentious, the rogues; libertines, flat libertines. They forget they ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... the Rhone. As for their contents, a porter had revealed that; they contained articles from the Mont-de-Piete that the French party were taking with them into exile. Articles from the Mont-de-Piete, that is to say, the spoils of the poor! The poorer the city the richer its pawn-shops. Few could boast such wealth as those of Avignon. It was no longer a factional affair, it was a theft, an infamous theft. Whites and Reds rushed to the Church of the Cordeliers, shouting that the municipality must render ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... words had been curt, no grace or kindness had he shown me of countenance. I felt in my heart that to him I was but a pawn in the game of battle. Now I seemed as far off as ever I was from my foolish dream of winning my spurs; nay, perchance never had I sunk lower in my own conceit. Till this hour I had been, as it were, the hinge on which my share of the world turned, and now ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... often, that I shall abuse your bounty." Finding it given to the poor afterwards at Turin, she gave him another, richer, charging him to keep that at least. He said. "Madam, I cannot promise you: I am very unfit to keep things of value." Inquiring after it one day, she was told it was always in pawn for the poor, and that {300} the diamond belonged not to the bishop, but to all the beggars of Geneva. He had indeed a heart which was not able to refuse any thing to those in want. He often gave to beggars the waistcoat off his own back, and sometimes the cruets of his chapel. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... "'You can pawn your watch,' says my false friend, rubbing his hands, and smiling, as if he really enjoyed the comicality of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... 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

... to the other was heavy with menace. The signs were unmistakable, but one did not have to see. One breathed it in at every breath. He knew, too, that intrigue was already going on all about him, and that the Iroquois were the great pawn in the game. British and French were already playing for the favor of the powerful Hodenosaunee, and Robert understood even better than many of those in authority that as the Hodenosaunee went so might go the war. It was certain that the Indians of the St. Lawrence and the North ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... best begin to change their clothes now," said Mother Rodesia. "They are both as sound as nails, and I don't want the clothes to be seen by Ben, for he's safe to pawn 'em, and if he pawns 'em the police may get 'em, and then the children may be traced, and we ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... moment's notice. Everything, however, went off with the most perfect harmony; a few compliments were exchanged between himself and his sovereign, and the meeting broke up after the usual ceremony of giving and receiving pawn. This consisted in the presentation by both the kings, to every stranger present, of a small pyramidal packet of leaves, which, when opened by the favoured recipient, was found to contain a few other ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... adopted a mode of warfare, which was soon turned with far more formidable effect against themselves. Half the inhabitants of the Grub Street garrets paid their milk scores, and got their shirts out of pawn, by abusing Pitt. His German war, his subsidies, his pension, his wife's peerage, were shin of beef and gin, blankets and baskets of small coal, to the starving poetasters of the Fleet. Even in the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... belong the precepts, which make it a duty to give timely assistance to him who is about to succumb to fatigue and labour, to supply with provisions the discharged servant, to restore before sunset the clothing taken in pawn, to obviate danger in building a house, to put no obstructions before the blind, to grant every kind of relief to whomsoever stands in need, without exacting, or even expecting, any remuneration, to rescue those who are in danger, to defend the weak, to protect the widow and the orphan, ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... been only more of the brute left in the Gladwin strain undoubtedly there would have been a sensational clash between the two men for the benefit of the beautiful young girl who, Gladwin strove to acknowledge, was the helpless pawn of circumstances. But the refinements of blood rob the physical man of his savage resources and impose a serious ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... 'Cafe Morisot,' Rue de la 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

... on the marsh, and when it cut into another dyke she followed that, walking on the bank beside the great teazle. A plank bridge took her across between two willows, and after some more such movements, like a pawn on a chess-board, she had crossed three dykes and was at the ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... officer, who wore his tarnished badge—evidently bought after long service in a pawn-shop at Cheyenne—pinned to his suspender at a point where he could turn his eye down on it whenever the longing, or a desire to feed upon the pride of his official importance, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

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

... valuable goods. I would not send you to St. Luc, because, being a generous man, he might take some foolish notion to exchange you, or even parole you. I would not give you to the Marquis Duquesne at Quebec, because then I might lose my pawn in the game, and, in any event, the Marquis Duquesne is retiring as Governor ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... he knew would make him a great man, even for this very gift's sake); yet in gratuity and stead of other requital of this jewel, he desired our Captain to accept these four pieces of gold, as a token of his thankfulness to him, and a pawn of ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols

... have some objective that centered about Myra Bland? Was the man a victim of hopeless passion, lingering near the unobtainable because he could not tear himself away? Was Myra holding him like a pawn in some obscure game that she played to feed her vanity? Or were the two of them caught in one of those inextricable coils which Hollister perceived to arise in the lives of men and women, from which they ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... darling dust and nuggets; let them lie in pawn, and wait for a claimant. They won't find Mr. Harrisson's heir-at-law in a hurry. If ever proof comes of the death of Mrs. Harrisson—whoever she was—I'll be ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... first 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 like a hungry land-steward), whom nobody took the trouble of respecting. Robber castles ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... setting on more wood, he made the walls spring into yellow flashes, between which Vesta saw her forefathers dart cold glances at her, in their gilt frames—yet how helpless they were, with all their respectability, to take her body or her father's honor out of pawn!—and she felt for the first time the hollowness of family power, except in the ever-preserved mail of a solvent posterity. She also made a long, careful survey of her suitor, to see if there was any apology ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... 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 ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... pieces out along a radial line toward the rim. Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ulleran rules, entitled him to a second move. He shifted another piece, a sort of combination knight and bishop, to threaten the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... of man that deceives himself as to his own aspect in the eyes of others. Be as kind as she might, Amy could not set him strutting Malvolio-wise; she viewed him as a poor devil who often had to pawn his coat—a man of parts who would never get on in the world—a friend to be thought of kindly because her dead husband had valued him. Nothing more than that; he understood perfectly the limits of her feeling. But this ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... Tony did when we were anchored together there was to propose again, after an apology. I let him get it over, and then played the next pawn in ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... of pride and wolfish eye, Judas-bearded, glancing sly; Many a pawn you have gathered in, Through circling ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various



Words linked to "Pawn" :   hock, commerce, helper, help, borrowing, pledge, pawn ticket, chessman, mercantilism, assistant, consign, charge, instrument, soak, commercialism, chess piece, supporter, chess, cat's-paw, chess game



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