Pawn is an English word of 4 letters with synonyms like pledge or consign. Below you'll find 10+ example sentences showing how it's used in practice.
Pawn in a sentence
Related words
Pawn meaning
- The state of being held as security for a loan, or as a pledge.
- An instance of pawning something.
- An item given as security on a loan, or as a pledge.
Synonyms of Pawn
Using Pawn
- The main meaning on this page is: The state of being held as security for a loan, or as a pledge. | An instance of pawning something. | An item given as security on a loan, or as a pledge.
- Useful related words include: pledge, consign, hock, soak.
- Possible Dutch translations are: pand, pion.
- In the example corpus, pawn often appears in combinations such as: pawn shop, the pawn, pawn in.
Context around Pawn
- Average sentence length in these examples: 31.8 words
- Position in the sentence: 10 start, 10 middle, 0 end
- Sentence types: 20 statements, 0 questions, 0 exclamations
Corpus analysis for Pawn
- In this selection, "pawn" usually appears near the start of the sentence. The average example has 31.8 words, and this corpus slice is mostly made up of statements.
- Around the word, passed, white, capturing, moves, first and tarrasch stand out and add context to how "pawn" is used.
- Recognizable usage signals include a passed pawn in an and a passed pawn tarrasch s. That gives this page its own corpus information beyond isolated example sentences.
- By corpus frequency, "pawn" sits close to words such as adapter, antiquity and berg, which helps place it inside the broader word index.
Example types with pawn
The same corpus examples are grouped by length and sentence type, making it easier to see the contexts in which the word appears:
A player with an unpromoted pawn on every file is therefore unable to drop a pawn anywhere. (17 words)
In the diagram at right, White has a protected passed pawn on c5 and Black has an outside passed pawn on h5. (22 words)
The capturing pawn moves into the empty square over which the moving pawn passed, and the moving pawn is removed from the board. (23 words)
In queenside castling, the king is placed closer to the center and the pawn on the a- file is undefended; the king is thus often moved to the b-file to defend the a-pawn and to move the king away from the center of the board. (47 words)
The diagrams on the right demonstrate an instance of this: if the white pawn moves from a2 to a4, the black pawn on b4 can capture it en passant, moving from b4 to a3 while the white pawn on a4 is removed from the board. (45 words)
Pawn promotion main If a player advances a pawn to its eighth rank, the pawn is then promoted (converted) to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color at the choice of the player (a queen is usually chosen). (41 words)
Example sentences (20)
Because endgames are often won by the player who can promote a pawn first, having a passed pawn in an endgame can be decisive – especially a protected passed pawn (a passed pawn that is protected by a pawn).
For example, one speaks of "White's f-pawn" or "Black's b-pawn", or less commonly (using descriptive notation ), "White's king bishop pawn" or "Black's queen knight pawn".
In middlegames and endgames with a passed pawn, Tarrasch's rule states that rooks, both friend and foe of the pawn, are usually strongest behind the pawn rather than in front of it.
Pawn promotion main If a player advances a pawn to its eighth rank, the pawn is then promoted (converted) to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color at the choice of the player (a queen is usually chosen).
The capturing pawn moves into the empty square over which the moving pawn passed, and the moving pawn is removed from the board.
The diagrams on the right demonstrate an instance of this: if the white pawn moves from a2 to a4, the black pawn on b4 can capture it en passant, moving from b4 to a3 while the white pawn on a4 is removed from the board.
After the first bullet took out the knight, if the second had removed the g-pawn rather than the h-pawn, Charles would be able to mate in ten.
Although both players start with one queen each, a player can promote a pawn to any of several types of pieces, including a queen, when the pawn is moved to the player's furthest rank (the opponent's first rank).
A pawn can capture an enemy piece on either of the two squares diagonally in front of the pawn (but cannot move to those squares if they are vacant).
A pawn captures any opposing piece horizontally or vertically between the square to which the pawn moved and a friendly piece (i.e. there may be no gaps between any of the three pieces).
A player with an unpromoted pawn on every file is therefore unable to drop a pawn anywhere.
En passant captures are indicated by specifying the capturing pawn's file of departure, the "x", the destination square (not the square of the captured pawn), and (optionally) the suffix "e.p." indicating the capture was en passant.
For example, Be5 (move a bishop to e5), Nf3 (move a knight to f3), c5 (move a pawn to c5—no piece letter in the case of pawn moves).
For example, exd5 (pawn on the e-file captures the piece on d5) or exd (pawn on the e-file captures a piece somewhere on the d-file).
If a player moves a pawn to its eighth rank, it cannot be substituted for a different move of the pawn when the player has stopped touching it.
In Japan, the usual symbol for a pawn shop is a circled number seven (7) because "shichi", the Japanese word for seven, sounds similar to the word for "pawn" ( 質 main).
In queenside castling, the king is placed closer to the center and the pawn on the a- file is undefended; the king is thus often moved to the b-file to defend the a-pawn and to move the king away from the center of the board.
In the diagram at right, the black pawn has just moved c7 to c5, so the white pawn may capture it by going from d5 to c6.
In the diagram at right, the pawn on c4 may move to c5, while the pawn on e2 may move to either e3 or e4.
In the diagram at right, White has a protected passed pawn on c5 and Black has an outside passed pawn on h5.
Common combinations with pawn
These word pairs occur most frequently in English texts:
- pawn shop 28×
- the pawn 27×
- pawn in 21×
- as pawn 15×
- pawn on 13×
- pawn shops 12×
- to pawn 11×
- passed pawn 9×
- pawn to 9×
- pawn is 9×