pawnshop

UK/ˈpɔːnʃɒp/US/ˈpɔnʃɑp/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,103 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: pawnshops

A pawnshop is a shop that lends money against goods left as security. Take it to a pawnshop, a pawnshop window, redeem it from the pawnshop.

You leave an item, take a loan against it, and get the item back when you repay with interest; if you do not, the pawnshop sells it. The three gold balls hanging outside are the sign of the trade, taken from the arms of the Medici bankers.

Definitions of pawnshop

1nounpawnshopA shop that lends money against goods left as security.B2+
“He took his watch to the pawnshop to borrow money for the rent.”

pawnshop is a shop.

Where it comes from

From pawn, a pledge, from Old French pan, plus shop. The pawn of chess is an unrelated word.

From pawn + shop.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Antiques & Collecting

Practise this word

pawnshop in the wild

While many items can be pawned, pawnshops typically accept jewelry, musical instruments, coins, gold, silver and firearms.
Pawnbroker
Some pawnshops are willing to trade items in their shop for items brought to them by customers.
Pawnbroker
Released on October 2, 1916, it stars Chaplin in the role of assistant to the pawnshop owner, played by Henry Bergman.
The Pawnshop
Cebuana Lhuillier Pawnshop (formerly known as Agencia Cebuana), commonly known as Cebuana, is a Philippine-based pawnshop and the flagship brand of PJ Lhuillier Group of Companies.
Cebuana Lhuillier
A pawnshop had operated on the site prior to the jazz club.
Jazz at the Pawnshop

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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