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Pawn   Listen
noun
Pawn  n.  (Chess) A man or piece of the lowest rank.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pawn" Quotes from Famous Books



... dream in practice. He can do his part honorably and well provided only he sets fearlessness before himself as an ideal, schools himself to think of danger merely as something to be faced and overcome, and regards life itself as he should regard it, not as something to be thrown away, but as a pawn to be promptly hazarded whenever the hazard is warranted by the larger interests of the great game in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... fellow among you, save Cazalet whose chilblains make him indecent, who doesn't wear socks? Haven't you all dress suits? Aren't you all suffocating with virtue? Would any Marcel of you lie naked in bed for two days so that Rodolfe could pawn your clothes for the wherewithal to nurse Mimi in sickness? Is there a Mimi in the whole ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... of the tavern 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 ever made, as it took me sixteen days ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... of yore contended more in goodness to exceed, Than in pride to be envied for that which least they need. Little lawn then serve[d] the Pawn, if Pawn at all there were; Homespun thread and household bread then held out all the year. But th' attires of women now wear out both house and land; That the wives in silk may flow, at ebb the good ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... craving for freedom. Should she have forced herself to give that up because any man chose to say, "I love you," while she did not love him? Was she to be blamed for Crysostom's death. For not loving him? Would not that have been to pawn her modesty and her womanly honor and virtue? And why should he have wanted ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... but they are denied thee. What said I to thee, Goody Dickisson, in the clough yonder, by the hollow trunk of the oak? Rememberest thou, when thou saidest thou wouldst pawn thy body for the wish of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... I move from sphere to sphere. I turn not back nor pause; my feet are drawn By shining power. Master soul or pawn, I know not which I am; I only hear The faint insistent world voice murmuring on Its pivot in another atmosphere; All else is silence, the pervading year Blows wanly through my ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... chess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice shades that separate the skilful ones show how closely their brains approximate,—almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is a "knight-player,"—he must have that piece given him. Another must have two pawns. Another, "pawn and two," or one pawn and two moves. Then we find one who claims "pawn and move," holding himself, with this fractional advantage, a match for one who would be pretty sure to beat him playing even.—So much are minds alike; and you and I think we are "peculiar,"—that Nature broke her jelly-mould ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... bridge," cried Cooper, on the coaching line. "Your speed has made you pawn things more than once, and now you've gone and ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... 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 ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... the job, to be quite candid; but it's a life I like—and lately I've managed to scrape along quite decently. Anyhow, at the time I met Jimmy I was down and out . . . Fleet Street would have none of me, and I even had to pawn ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres

... throw a broad belt of German military power and political control across the very center of Europe and beyond the Mediterranean into the very heart of Asia; and Austria-Hungary was to be as much their tool and pawn as Serbia or Bulgaria or Turkey or the ponderous states of the East. Austria-Hungary, indeed, was to become part of the central German Empire, absorbed and dominated by the same forces and influences that ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... with the Ages dead— With our Past alive and ablaze, And you bid us pawn our honour for bread; This day of all the days! And you cannot wait till our guests are sped, Or ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... 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 ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... 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

... when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you shortly, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... time, year 1171, Herstal had been given in pawn to the Church of Liege, for a loan, by the then proprietor, Duke of Lorraine and Brabant. Loan was repaid, I do not learn when, and the Pawn given back; to the satisfaction of said Duke, or Duke's Heirs; never ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... was near akin to it: to take out of pawn divers valued articles, two or three of which had been her mother's; for Reuben's lameness, poor man, kept him much out of work, and the childer came so quick, and ate so fast, and wore out such a sight of shoes, that, but for an occasional appeal to Mrs. Quarles—it was her one ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... to come aboard, brake his promise, but sent his brother to make his excuse, and to entreat our General to come on shore, offering himself pawn aboard for his safe return. Whereunto our General consented not, upon mislike conceived of the breach of his promise; the whole company also utterly refusing it. But to satisfy him, our General sent certain of his gentlemen to the Court, to ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty

... glasses are perfect," Raissa went on. "I showed it to father; he said, 'Take it and pawn it to the diamond-merchant'! What do you think, would they give us anything for it? What do we want a telescope for? To look at ourselves in the looking-glass and see what beauties we are? But we ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... and making it masculine. She has done it very well too, and I am happy to recall that, in another place, I was among the many who prophesied good concerning her future when she made her debut as a novelist with The Stars in their Courses in Mr. FISHER UNWIN'S "First Novel Library." A Pawn in Pawn comes very properly from the same publisher. It has one of those plots which it is most particularly a reviewer's business, in the reader's own interest, not to reveal, but it is permissible to explain that the "pawn" of the title ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various

... more potently than conscience," said Pike, with a grandiloquent gesture. "I had sought alms and been refused at that mill. Lurking about I saw you leave the summer-house and spied the gold pen. I can give you a pawn ticket for that," said Mr. Pike sadly. "But I saw, too, the value of your scenario and notes. Desperately I had determined to try to enter this field of moving pictures. It is a terrible come down, Miss Fielding, for an artist—this ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

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

... added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick with excitement as she went on. 'It's a great huge game of chess that's being played—all over the world—if this IS the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I WISH I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should LIKE to be a ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll

... him, yet patched his clothes so long as she could get patches and thread, and would have washed them if she could have got soap, and been able to bring the water, and if her only tub hadn't been in pawn. Oh, yes, there are degrees ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... guilty of conceit, but I honestly think that I was not the last pawn on the chessboard in the drawing-room, and that is perhaps the reason why I have been thinking during the past two years and could not understand why I was thrown aside like a ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... after they had put to sea they were attacked by pirates. They escaped only by running their vessel on shore on the coast of Finland. Here the king found himself in a state of almost absolute destitution, so that he had to pawn his clothing to satisfy the most urgent demands. At length, after meeting with various strange adventures, he found his way to the Hague, where he was, for the ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

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

... representation did me good, for the tradesmen took him at his word regarding my fortune (I have since learned that the rascal pigeoned several other young men of property), and for a little time supplied me with any goods I might be pleased to order. At length, my cash running low, I was compelled to pawn some of the suits with which the tailor had provided me; for I did not like to part with my mare, on which I daily rode in the Park, and which I loved as the gift of my respected uncle. I raised some little money, too, on a few trinkets which I had purchased of a jeweller who pressed his ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... this episode, Mr. Middleton went to an acquaintance who kept a large loan bank on Madison Street, who, after discovering that he had no desire to pawn the ring, appraised it at ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... of the road, at a little distance, there are some fine villages, thickly peopled, and situated in fine and well-cultivated soil. The country is well wooded, except in the worst parts of the soil, where trees do not thrive. We saw a great deal of sugar-cane in the distance and a few pawn-gardens. The population of the villages came to the high road to see us pass; and among them were a great many native officers and sipahees of our Regiments, who are at their homes on furlough, Government having given a very large portion of the native army the indulgence of furlough during the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... 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

... ripe, I used to slip out of the house from the back door early in the morning to pick up the chestnuts which had fallen during the night, and eat them at the school. On the west side of the vegetable yard was the adjoining garden of a pawn shop called Yamashiro-ya. This shopkeeper's son was a boy about 13 or 14 years old named Kantaro. Kantaro was, it happens, a mollycoddle. Nevertheless he had the temerity to come over the fence to our yard and steal ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... Steingall with a dry laugh. "You haven't thought this matter out, Mr. Curtis. When you have slept on it, and the fact dawns on you that there are other people in the world than the charming Lady Hermione, you will realize that she is a mere pawn around whom a number of very important persons are contending. I don't wish to say a word to depreciate her as a star of the first magnitude, but I am greatly mistaken if there is not another woman, either here or in Europe, whose personality, if known, would attract far more attention ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... Tower for attacking two Lombards in the Old Jewry. The mercers in this reign sold woollen clothes, but not silks. In 1371, John Barnes, mercer, mayor, gave a chest with three locks, with 1,000 marks therein, to be lent to younger mercers, upon sufficient pawn and for the use thereof. The grateful recipients were merely to say "De Profundis," a Pater Noster, and no more. This bequest seems to have started among the Mercers the kindly practice of assisting the young and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... I have, But not so serious to pawn my life for't: If you keep this quarter, and maintain about you Such Knights o'th' Sun as this is, to defie Men of imployment to ye, you may ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

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

... he'll be likely to stay where he can get most easily at the drink. Secondly, he'll not go away to any near country place, because he'd get sooner marked there. Thirdly, as he seems hard up for money, he'll have to pawn anything he may have left that's worth pawning, and he can do that best and most secretly in ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... dressed, some but sparingly washed; many wore the same clothes they wore through the week, though probably most of these had a better gown or suit, if that could be called having which was represented by a pawn-ticket. Hester could hardly say she saw among them much sign of listening. Most of the faces were just as vacant as those to be seen in the most fashionable churches, but there were one or two which seemed to show their owners in some kind of sympathetic relation with the speaker, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... forget. 3. If I pass over in silence this portion of my life, the reader will lose nothing by not knowing it. 4. It was always the same story, business not prospering, the rent in arrears, the plate in pawn. 5. Having said this, M. Eyssette senior began to walk with big strides without speaking. 6. I have only succeeded in getting us over head and ears in debt. 7. To get out of it, you have only one decision to come ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... heir-looms they are never sold, except three or four sets should, from family casualties, become the property of an individual, yet there is neither law nor prejudice against pawning them; and, in pawn they generally are, from the week's commencement to its end, being redeemed on the Saturday night, only to be worn on Sunday, and pledged again on the Monday morning. There are shops in Genoa expressly for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various

... went on, pulling a small bag from his pocket and opening it carefully while they crowded around him, fairly smothering him in their eagerness, "and the rest of it's in the pawn shop. We found the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... the time of our visit, was gay with holiday dresses. It is surrounded by trees, chiefly of banyan, jack, mango, peepul, and tamarind: interminable rice-fields extend on all sides, and except bananas, slender betel-nut palms, and sometimes pawn, or betel-pepper, there is little other extensive cultivation. The rose-apple, orange, and pine-apple are rare, as are cocoa-nuts: there are few date or fan-palms, and only occasionally poor crops of castor-oil and sugar-cane. In the gardens I noticed jasmine, Justicia Adhatoda, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

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

... moment's freedom to escape and then pounces upon him with the soft-furred claws; assured of his superiority in the game, yet using only half his mind; fencing with one arm pinioned; chess-playing with a rook and pawn given to his antagonist; or shall we say chess-playing blindfold and seeing every piece upon the board? Is Bishop Blougram's Apology a poem at all? some literary critics may ask. And the answer is that through it we make acquaintance with one of Browning's most genial inventions—the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... 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 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... 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 he ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... of the stage and of the lives of actors have greatly changed since the generation went out to which such men as Junius Booth and Augustus A. Addams belonged. No tragedian would now be so mad as to put himself in pawn for drink, as Cooke is said to have done, nor be found scraping the ham from the sandwiches provided for his luncheon, as Junius Booth was, before going on to play Shylock. Our theatre has no longer a Richardson to light up a pan of red fire, ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... is not even a pawn in the game—as, indeed, I begin to believe he never really was, but has been from the first a dupe of Buckhurst—it is the duty of every honest man to watch Buckhurst and warn the authorities that he possibly has designs on the crown jewels of France, which that cruiser ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... Debt is another of those odious badges which mark a man as a slave, and let him but go on to recovery, that like a snake in the sunshine, he may be the more effectually scotched and secured. Gay says to Swift, "I hate to be in debt; for I can't bear to pawn five pounds worth of my liberty to a tailor or a butcher. I grant you, this is not having the true spirit of modern nobility; but it is hard to cure the prejudice of education;" and every man will own ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various

... called Stains and 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 buys it ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... I wrote this narrative, I had gone into lodgings at Barnsbury, and shared rooms with a struggling water-colour painter, who, for the most part, in default of patrons, worked for the pawn-broker—a harum-scarum, ripe-hearted Irishman; and on the Sunday on which I turned out my first contribution to the World, he sat painting and smoking close at hand, and I read out to him, paragraph after paragraph, as ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... 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 ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... streets of Leicester we can see 'life' of a sort. We can watch the procession to the pawnbrokers. Some of the knitters pawn their blankets for the day, and most lodge their Sunday clothing during the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... 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 in ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... regard myself as so completely the property of a man whom I do not love, and who actively dislikes me, as to hold my very feelings in trust for him. Disabuse yourself of that idea, Henriette. I claim rights over myself, and I will hold myself in pawn for no man. This is no news either to you or to Hubert. Why pretend ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... heretic, so dear to the hearts of Englishmen, be extinguished in the brighter glories of Elizabeth the Catholic. Bring her up in the Catholic faith, and wed her to a Catholic Prince, and I will lay mine head to pawn that she shall make a right royal queen, and the star of England's glory shall suffer no tarnish in her hands. I have seen the little maid, and a bright, brave, bonnie ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... circumstance was deeply pathetic; for what so heart-rending as the exhibition of fallen greatness, of broken-down prosperity, of affluence regularly stumped and hard-up! The fact is, that "Punch," his theatre, and corps dramatique, are in pawn for eight-and-ninepence! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you the whole truth—for I did extenuate there!—and he seemed to me essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story. Now it would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire.—Again, the idea of publishing the Beach substantively is dropped—at once, both on account of expostulation, and because ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that. The Prince drilled a hole in the rock, and we got out. We've put the garrison in pawn, so to speak, but I've been mighty anxious these last few days because the sail-boat they had here, and two of the garrison, escaped to the mainland with the news. We were anxiously watching your yacht, fearing it was Russian. Jack thought it was the Czar's yacht. How ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... proper there is the 'Mission Chapel,' where other services are held. One day in the week there is a sale of clothes at very low prices. They are sold rather than given, because if the women have paid a few pence for them they are less willing to pawn them than if they had received them for nothing. In the Mission Chapel are held classes for young girls and services ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... but tallies were struck for the whole sum. These all remained in the late treasurer's hands at the time of his removal, yet the money was expended, which occasioned those great demands upon the commissioners of the treasury who succeeded him, and were forced to pawn those tallies to the bank, or to remitters, rather than sell them at twenty or twenty-five per cent. discount, as the price then was. About two hundred thousand pounds of them they paid to clothiers of the army, and others; and all the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... glad ye are out of prison. I thought ye had forgot me: I went a-begging for[256] you, till the beadles snapp'd me up: now I am free, and keep a stall of ballads. I may buy and sell. I would you had as good a gown now, as I carried once of yours to pawn to Usury here. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... answer, but, without asking which should begin, moved a pawn... Michel did not move in reply... I looked at him. His head was stretched a little forward; pale all over, with imploring eyes he signed towards ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... don't want 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 for? ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... remained in this capacity till 1602 or 1603, when, his strength and intellect beginning to fail him, he was compelled to resign. He retired to his old dwelling at Mortlake, in a state not far removed from actual want, supporting himself as a common fortune-teller, and being often obliged to sell or pawn his books to procure a dinner. James I. was often applied to on his behalf, but he refused to do anything for him. It may be said to the discredit of this King, that the only reward he would grant the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... But that might have necessitated explanations. "Well, you must take the security, I'm afraid," she said, "or I can't take the loan. As I told you, I left most of my things in New York, to be sent on when I settle down. Still, there's one thing, which I couldn't pawn, or leave with hotel people. But I wouldn't mind giving it to you. It's a diamond frame for a miniature I always carry with me. I could ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... "Young Chevalier" when France took it into her head to make a pawn of him in the political chess-game with England. As a man he was beneath contempt; as a "King"—well, he was a Roi pour rire; but at least the Royal House he represented might be made a useful weapon against the arrogant Hanoverian ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

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

... I have not bought a new gown this season except that little gray one and this—which was made in the house. I dared not pawn my jewels, for fear ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... 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 police had received ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... up. She would pawn the ring to someone, and trust to her lucky star to get it back before she returned to Lavender House. She knew well that Mrs. Willis would ask her for it as soon as ever she went back to school. Mrs. ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... The police have been at my heels ever since. I carried little enough money away with me, and I dared not attempt to change a cheque while I was thought to be dead." He drew a gold watch from his pocket. "I dare not even pawn this, for even the pawnbrokers are watched. They stopped all my efforts to raise money in other directions, and have isolated me from my friends. I have fifteen shillings left, and yet since they routed me out of cover the day before yesterday I have not dared get a lodging ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... not have planned more carefully than he did for these visits, and to meet the expense was no easy matter for him. Indeed, I know that to pay for all our gayeties he usually had to carry his guitar to a neighboring pawn-broker where the instrument was always good for an eight-dollar loan. But from the time Richard first began to make his own living one of the great pleasures of his life was to celebrate, or as he called it, to "have a party." Whenever he had finished a short story he had a party, and when the story ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... out from the pawn-shop, and now and then a copper fell into his hat. He did not die of starvation, and that was about ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... a 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; Hey ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

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

... beauty,—as a nun over her missal. In short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn, in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would of course take—to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide. In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase, "put him through" all the material part of life; see him sheltered, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... 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

... here the ruling passions. A coolie will pawn anything and everything to obtain the means with which to indulge these fascinations. There are many games played publicly at restaurants and in the retiring rooms of mercantile establishments. Not only are cards, dice, and dominos common, but sticks, straws, brass rings, etc., are thrown in heaps ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... —Thou shinest a light to mankind * With thy lore as the night which the Moon doth uplight! I answer, "A truce to your jests and your gibes; * Without luck what is learning?—a poor-devil wight! If they take me to pawn with my lore in my pouch, * With my volumes to read and my ink-case to write, For one day's provision they never could pledge me; * As likely on Doomsday to draw bill at sight:" How poorly, indeed, doth it fare wi' the poor, * With his pauper existence and beggarly plight: In summer he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one pretence and another, he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, and so on, and I let him have it! and then there was one of those fatting steers that he proposed to me to let him have on account, and I thought it was as good a way of paying him as any; and that made up pretty near the half of ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... found out that she's in twice the trouble I thought before. The kid's a pawn in a fight for power between political oppositions. They'll crucify her gladly, without respect to the merits of the case. Too much is riding on it for justice ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Christ should be, and where the poor should be cared for, if there is Christianity still on the earth. And you are poor, let us say; hardly knowing how to scrape together a handful of food sometimes; and your children ragged and hungry; and you forced from time to time to go to the Monte di Pieta to pawn your small belongings, or else you will die, or you will see your children ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... be the leather, well gilded every nail. In my behalf do thou hasten to Vidas and Raquel. Since in Burgos they forbade me aught to purchase, and the King Withdraws his favor, unto them my goods I cannot bring. They are heavy, and I must pawn them for whatso'er is right. That Christians may not see it, let them come for them by night. May the Creator judge it and of all the Saints the choir. I can no more, and I do ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon

... 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, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... hearing this of his mother, was content, and gart her pawn a hundred crowns and a tun of wine upon the English-men's hands; and he incontinent laid down as much for the Scottish-men. The field and ground was chosen in St. Andrews, and three landed men and three yeomen chosen to shoot against the English-men,—to wit, David ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... 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

... entertained folk without number, he was made perforce aware of his default and ran hither and thither, perplexed beyond measure, like a man beside himself, inwardly cursing his ill fortune, but found neither money nor aught he might pawn. It was now growing late and he having a great desire to entertain the gentle lady with somewhat, yet choosing not to have recourse to his own labourer, much less any one else, his eye fell on his good falcon, which he saw on his perch in his little ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... the vilest of beasts; yea, sin is worse than the devil himself, for it is sin, and sin only, that hath made the devils devils; and yet for this, for this vile, this abominable thing, some men, yea, most men, will venture the loss of their soul; yea, they will mortgage, pawn, and set their souls to sale for it (Jer 44:4). Is not this a great waster? doth not this man deserve to be ranked among the extravagant ones? What think you of him who, when he tempted the wench to uncleanness, said to her, If thou wilt venture thy body, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... eccentric," said he. "Are you mad, Jane? Pray," continued he, veiling his wrath in scornful words, "is it requisite, heroic, or judicious on the eve, or more correctly the morn, of affluence to deposit an unfinished work of art with a mercenary relation? Hang it, Jane! would you really have me pawn Mrs. Woffington to-day?" ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... should go to inquire after the invalid cousin. Denah thought herself the deepest and most diplomatic young woman in Holland; she even found it in her heart to pity Julia, the poor companion, who she used as a pawn in her romance. The which, since it was transparently obvious to the pawn, gave her ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... do any such thing," Marion said, promptly; "at least, not until I had become convinced that people played croquet late into the night, in rooms smelling of tobacco and liquor, and were tempted to drink freely of the latter, and pawn their coats, if necessary, to get money enough to carry out the game. You ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... century. The castle has undergone many changes; its older name of "rook" was derived from the Persian word rokh, a hero. No doubt all the pieces were then carved personalities, well understood from king to pawn. In the modern forms of Staunton and London Club patterns the knight alone retains its semblance in the horse's head—a poor substitute for the beautifully carved warrior on horseback seen in some of the ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess

... not feel in a letter-writing mood this morning, so shall as far as possible arrange my kit and possessions for the next move on the board, on which this poor Yeoman is a humble pawn. I have just finished the "Inland Voyage," which you may remember concludes thus, in the final chapter, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... and when 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 ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... be powerless. One day he was brought to Peking as Grand Councillor and President of the Board of Foreign Affairs, and ordered to hand over all army matters to his noted rival, the Manchu Tieh Liang. The time had arrived to muzzle him. His last phase as a pawn ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... nothing of earthly solaces; all had been laid upon the altar. They, had, moreover professed their willingness to deposit there their very souls. The vow of unconditional obedience, as thus understood, was a holocaust of the immortal well-being. Each now, as an offering acceptable to God, was to pawn his interest in time and eternity, putting the pledge into the hands of one to be chosen by themselves. It was debated whether this absolute power should be conferred upon the holder of it for life or for a term of years only, and whether in the fullest sense it should be without conditions, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... uneasily. She stretched her lithe form and looked up into the night. Then she, too, disappeared. Mr. Heatherbloom stood motionless. She knew who he was and yet she had not revealed his secret to the prince. Because she deemed him but a pawn, paltry, inconsequential? Because she wished to save the hot-headed nobleman from committing a deed of violence—a crime, ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... disaster; the very Romans were not steady of old, but followed the fortune of the Common Victor. The German and the French will happily stick to their Prince in distresse, as far as the Plate, the Tapistry, or some such superfluous moveable may abide the pawn; But where shall we find a Subject that hath persisted like Your Majesties, to the losse of Libertie, Estate, and life it self, when yet all seem'd to be determin'd against them; so as even their enemies were at last vanquish'd with their constancy, and ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn

... the law was futile and some of it mischievous; and they all said, 'But what can you do?' and by their tone indicated that you could do nothing. According to Osmond Orgreave's wit, the only real use of a magistrate was to sign the necessary papers for persons who had lost pawn-tickets. It appeared that such persons in distress came to Mr Orgreave every day for the august signature. "I had an old woman come to me this morning at my office," he said. "I asked her how it was they were always losing their pawn-tickets. I told her I never lost ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... 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 ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... any man or woman—save only to his wife—the great ultimate purpose of his life. He did not tell it to Olive. She was to be used as a pawn in the great game, just as he was using Sir Francis and the dead Clifford Matheson. It came upon him that she was now a widow. He would fan her open admiration so as to make use of it when she awoke to the fact ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... settle, Most like a Man of Mettle, And vow'd to pawn his Kettle, Now mark what did ensue; His Neighbours they flock'd in apace, To see Tom Tinker's comely Face, Where they drank soundly for a ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... Sandy along in '75 had not been allowed to bear too heavily on its little garrison. There was nothing worth stealing about the place, said Plume, and no pawn-shop handy. Of course there were government horses and mules, food and forage, arms and ammunition, but these were the days of soldier supremacy in that arid and distant land, and soldiers had a summary way of settling with ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... Had perish'd but for me, I still suppli'd His miserable wants; I sent his Daughter Mony to buy him food; the bread he eat, Was from my purse: when he (vain-gloriously) To dive into the peoples hearts, had pawn'd His birth-right, I redeem'd it, sent it to him, And for requitall, only made my suite, That he would please to new receive his son Into his favour, for whose love I told him I had been still so friendly: but then he As void of gratitude, as all good nature, Distrafted like a mad ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... was brewing. On July 2, 1881, President Garfield was assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker named Guiteau. The attention of the people was suddenly turned from the ridiculous diversion of the Conkling incident to the tragedy and its cause. They saw the chief office in their gift a mere pawn in the game of place-seekers, the time and energy of their President wasted in bickerings with congressmen over petty appointments, and the machinery of their Government dominated by the machinery of the party for ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth

... annum for ten years without failure was eligible to belong to it. The Honourable Merchants are free from all imposts, conscriptions, etcetera, and pay no taxes. Another mode Nicholas took of ruining the old nobility was to establish a pawn bank, where they could at all times pledge then property. By encouraging their extravagance, many were unable to redeem it, and, being put up for sale, it was bought up by the Honourable Merchants and other members of the trading community. ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... resist was not morally justified he "did not see how resistance 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. ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... posterity; and the papers, supposed to contain the necessary information, were delivered to lord Molesworth, who had been his favourite in Flanders. When Molesworth died the same papers were transferred, with the same design, to sir Richard Steele, who, in some of his exigencies, put them in pawn. They then remained with the old dutchess who, in her will, assigned the task to Glover and Mallet, with a reward of a thousand pounds, and a prohibition to insert any verses. Glover rejected, I suppose, with disdain, the legacy, and devolved ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... 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



Words linked to "Pawn" :   help, chess game, chess, commerce, cat's-paw, supporter, commercialism, soak, charge, consign, chess piece, helper



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