pignus

English

Etymology

From Latin pignus.

Noun

pignus (plural pignora)

1. (law, obsolete, Ancient Rome) A pledge or pawn.
   • 1851, Sir Patrick MacChombaich de Colquhoun, A Summary of the Roman Civil Law, page 392:

     Thirdly, pignus is the object itself upon which the creditor acquires such real right.

   • 1895, Thomas Beven, Negligence in Law, page 937:

     Pledge is the pignus of the Roman law; and it is from this source that most of the principles governing the subject are derived.

   • 1898, Harvard Law Review, volume 11, page 23:

     A commonly accepted notion is that pignus is not a generic term at all; that it is limited (1) to movables, and particularly (2) to the pledgee's possession.

   • 1998, Alan Watson, quoting Ulpian, Edict, book 28, The Digest of Justinian, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN:

     A pignus can be given for other reasons besides money, as where one gives someone a pignus against his acting as guarantor.

   • 2004 August 26, Eva-Maria Kieninger, editor, Security Rights in Movable Property in European Private Law, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 41:

     Pignus was created by traditio, which is by surrender of civilis possessio to the chargee.

Related terms

• pignus amoris

 

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “pignus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• gins up, pungis, sign up, signup, sing up, spuing

Latin

Etymology

Some refer it to Proto-Indo-European *peyǵ- or *peyḱ-; others refer it to Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to fasten, fix”); its meaning perhaps being "something pinned/fixed/retained (as pledge)".

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈpiɡ.nus/, [ˈpɪŋnʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpiɲ.ɲus/, [ˈpiɲːus]

Noun

pignus n (genitive pignoris); third declension

1. pledge, mortgage

   Synonyms: vōtum, fīdūcia

2. hostage
3. wager, stake

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pignus	pignora
Genitive	pignoris	pignorum
Dative	pignorī	pignoribus
Accusative	pignus	pignora
Ablative	pignore	pignoribus
Vocative	pignus	pignora

Derived terms

• pignerō

Descendants

• → Albanian: peng
• → English: pignus
• Italian: pegno
• Old Occitan: penh
• Piedmontese: pegn
• Old Galician-Portuguese: pennor
  • Portuguese: penhor
• Sicilian: pignu
• Old Spanish: peños; pendra (< *pignora)
  • Spanish: peño; prenda
    • → Portuguese: prenda

References

• “pignus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pignus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pignus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• pignus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pignus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “pignus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin