Pwn
The verb pwn (past tense: pwned, pwnd, pwn'd, pwnt) (pronunciation is still widely debated) as used by the Internet gaming culture, means to beat or dominate an opponent (pwned can mean "to be made a fool of"). While it probably originated as a typographical error of the word own, it is now used intentionally by many members of the culture. The term has become so ubiquitous in Internet circles that it is often used outside of gaming contexts – for example, "He just got pwned in that debate", "The hunters pwnt that bear", "Liverpool opened a can of ultimate pwnage", "I got pwned on the SATs", "Emile Morales just got PWNED!", or "I just pwned that job interview."
Origin
The word "pwn" is an Internet variation on the word "own". There are several accepted possible origins for the word, all of which rely on a pre-existing emphasis by computer users of the word "own".
The likely beginning of the meme is from the hacker scene on EFNet IRC circa 1994. "Owned" or "Own3d" referred to getting administrative privileges on someone's computer by exploiting a security vulnerability. The use of the word 'own' in terms of victory over another predates its use in the gaming subculture. This accounts for the pre-existing proliferation of the word, which may then have been morphed into "pwn" through any of the following possible means.
- One theory is that it was first used when a map designer accidentally typed "pwn" instead of "own", in the game Starcraft (or possibly Warcraft). The game was then released with this spelling error. When a player has been beat, the message "______ has been pwned" shows up. The game producers later fixed this with patches, but it remained in the vocabulary of 1337 or leet speakers.
- Another possible origin is with the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike, and similar First Person Shooters. It is thought that the word may have been an abbreviation of the phrase "pistol own" which indicated killing another player with a pistol, a feat regarded as quite skillful.
- Some believe that the word is derived simply from a common misspelling, with no significant event proliferating its use. Instead it is assumed that it simply began to spread as a result of fast typing, the proximity of the P and O keys on the QWERTY keyboard, and the tendency of gamers and net users to create and expand Internet memes.
- Yet another way of deriving "pwn" from "own" is by jokingly stating that P is the next letter after O, alphabetically, and in that way poses as some sort of higher level - so "pwn" is a kind of superlative "own". This is the origin of other web slang expressions, such as "raising" the slang spelling "gr8" (for great) to "gr9" because 9 is the next step up from 8.
- Another possible origin is that of being "professionally owned". to mean that you were owned, and that the owner is a professional. the slang then shortened "professionally" to "p" and "owned" to "wn", resulting in "pwn".
- One less widely accepted theory is that "pwn" is derived from "peon owned." That is to say, in the RTS game Warcraft, another player is beaten by a player using exclusively a team of Peons from the Orc race.
- A likely theory would be that the word "pwn" is short for "Power Owned" in which someone was defeated or owned so hard that it doesnt just deserve the title of "OWNED", but "PWND" or POWER OWNED!!
- Yet another possible origin is the circumvention of language filters. Some game servers began to ban the word "own" and its variants to combat its overuse by some players when they achieved victory. Sometimes the message would be blocked; other times the user would simply be banned from the server. Some of these players may have used "pwn" as a substitute word in order to bypass the filters.
Pronunciation
There are many different ideas on how "pwn" is properly pronounced. Some of the common variations include "own", "puh-own", "pawn," "poon" or, most commonly, "poan", as rhymed with "moan."