Pawn and peon … do they have the same origin and original meaning?
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This is something I've been wondering a while and it may be owed to the fact that on occasion when you see a movie or documentary with subtitles turned on, the spoken word that I would recognize as "pawn" is being spelled "peon" in the subtitles. Now do a search for pawn peon on this site. Turns out that even on this site someone was using the two words seemingly in an interchangeable fashion. Wiktionary gives two explanations for the meaning of pawn (quote): (chess) The most common chess piece, or a similar piece in a similar game. In chess each side has eight; moves are only forward, and attacks are only forward diagonally or en passant. (colloquial) Someone who is being manipulated or used to some end, usually not the end that individual would prefer. Though a pawn of the gods...