pegno

Forms

pegno m (plural pegni or (archaic) pegnora f)^[1] Old Italian also had pegnio and pigno, and an old feminine plural pegnora beside pignore.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pignus (“pledge, security, hostage”), a neuter noun whose plural is pignora.^[4][5][6][1] The Latin plural survives in the old Italian plural Old Italian pegnora, and Spanish prenda and Portuguese prenda also go back to it.^[5][3][7] The same word is Old Occitan penh, Romansh pein and Logudorese pinnus, and Old Occitan empenhar, Spanish empeñar and Portuguese empenhar “to pawn” are derived from it.^[5][8]

DELI, Nocentini, Devoto–Oli and DEI connect the Latin word with pingō (“to paint”): the pledge would first have been a mark made to recall a promise.^{[4][5][9][10]} The OLD also suggests a stem *pig- of the same verb.^[11] De Vaan finds the etymology uncertain, because a word for “pledge” could have come from many concrete uses.^[12] Besides the link with the verb for painting, favoured by Walde–Hofmann and Pokorny, Knobloch proposed *peḱ-nos- “amount of cattle”, and de Lamberterie *peg-no-, from the root of pangō (“to fix, fasten”).^[12] De Vaan finds the last view the most likely in meaning, but it needs a change of Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-no- (“fastened”) to *peǵno- that is not generally accepted.^[12][1] Festus records an older plural pignosa, with ⟨s⟩ where the later form has ⟨r⟩.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word first appears in 1186 in a charter from Fabriano, in the form pingnu.^[4][6] The form pegno is recorded in Florentine texts of 1255–1290 and in 1292, in the sense of a movable good handed over to a creditor as a guarantee that a debt will be paid.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense is the oldest and is still the main one.^[4][6] Boccaccio's Decameron has a man leave his cloak as a pledge: io ti lascerò pegno questo mio tabarro di sbiavato (“I will leave you this pale-blue cloak of mine as a pledge”).^[7][9] By 1314 the word also named the small object a player hands over when he loses a parlour game, which he gets back only after doing a penalty.^[4] DEI dates this sense only from the 17th century.^[10]

The figurative sense “sign, token, proof” appears before 1374 in Petrarch.^[4] He also calls the beloved woman dolce mio caro e prezioso pegno (“my sweet, dear and precious pledge”), and a beloved person can still be called a pegno in literary use;^[6][13] i pegni dell'amore are a couple's children.^[6][13] The verb impegnare “to pawn, to commit” was derived in the 13th century.^[5] Its derivative impegno “commitment” followed in 1640.^[5] The learned pignorare “to distrain” replaced the old pegnorare.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 1186 – Pingnu appears in a charter from Fabriano.^[4][6]
• 1255–1290 – The form pegno is recorded in Florentine texts.^[4]
• 1314 – Francesco da Barberino uses the word for a forfeit in a game.^[4]
• Before 1374 – Petrarch uses it in the sense “sign, token”.^[4]
• 1640 – The derivative impegno is first recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) pledge: a security right over a movable good that the debtor hands over to the creditor, who can satisfy the debt from it before other creditors if it is not paid.^[6][9][3]
2. The object given as security, or the security itself: Ha lasciato l'orologio in pegno.^[6][16][17]
3. (games) A forfeit: an object handed over by a player who loses or makes a mistake, returned after a penalty; also the penalty itself, as in pagare pegno.^[6][9][3]
4. (figurative) A token or proof of a feeling or a moral commitment: Le regalò un braccialetto come pegno di riconoscenza.^[6][16][13]
5. (literary) A dearly loved person.^[6][13]

Word family

• impegnare
• impegnato
• impegno
• disimpegnare
• disimpegno
• spegnare

Related words

• pignorare
• Latin pignus

Usage notes

Monte dei pegni (or di pegno) is the pawnshop, the same as the monte di pietà.^[3][17][18] The GDLI also records a rare learned pegno, from Greek, for a kind of classical love poem.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2822
11. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
15. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 757
16. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)