Other forms: pledged, pledges, pledging
A pledge is a solemn promise. Make a pledge, a pledge of support, honour the pledge.
In fundraising, a pledge is a promise of money — pledge a hundred pounds — and pledge drives depend on people keeping them. The older sense is something handed over as security for a debt, which is what a pawnbroker takes and where the word comes from. As a verb it covers both: pledge allegiance, pledge your house. Note take the pledge, an old phrase for promising to give up alcohol.
1nounpledgeA solemn promise.
“The pledge was made in public and forgotten in private.”
2noungivenSomething given as security for a debt.
“The watch was left as a pledge and never redeemed.”
3verbformallyTo promise something formally.
“The company pledged to plant a tree for every product it sold.”
pledge is a promise or security.
Old French plege meant a surety — a person or thing standing as guarantee. The Frankish root means to guarantee, so the promise and the deposit are one idea: something you leave behind to prove you will come back.
Frankish
*plehan — to pledge; to support; to guarantee
Medieval Latin
plevium
Old French
plege
Anglo-Norman
plege
Middle English
plege
English, today
pledge
Built from
From Middle English plege, from Anglo-Norman plege, from Old French plege (Modern French pleige) from Medieval Latin plevium, plebium, from plebiō (“to pledge”), from Frankish plehan (“to pledge; to support; to guarantee”). Akin to Old High German pflegan (“to take care of, be accustomed to”), Old Saxon plegan (“to vouch for”), Old English plēon (“to risk, endanger”). More at plight.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire