pignus

From Latin pignus.

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.

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

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)".

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

pignus n (genitive pignoris); third declension

1. pledge, mortgage

   Synonyms: vōtum, fīdūcia

2. hostage
3. wager, stake

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

• pignerō

• → 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

• “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