Origins of pwn

While doing Latin today I found something interesting. The Latin word poena (pronounced pwna) means punishment. That now brings us to what pwn means. We use it in to context of vanquishing a foe easily taking very little damage and killing it quickly. Killing an NPC in one hit is pwning it. Back to poena, it means punishment and when we pwn a foe we have punished them, right? So whoever thought up of pwn probably used poena as the root.

Lol. That's incredible that you found that. I just never thought gamers put so much effort in their language...

I thought it came from 'own'. The 'p' and the 'o' buttons are right beside each other on the keyboard, so often people made typos, replacing the o with a p.

I like the latin way a lot though

Heh, I thought of that also. I also used to believe Pwning was above owning, Like a major ''ownage''. Eh kind of dumb I guess.

nice find, but unfortunately it is sheer coincidence. Pwn was indeed forged from the popularization off a typo of own. the bases if your comparision is about as plausible as pens, pawns, puns, and pins all originating from punishment. It IS however a convenient link.

Yeah no way it comes from latin.

I highly doubt someone would be smart enough to use ''PWN'' from latin, that seems quite far fetched but still possible. The idea of the typo makes more sense, in my opinion.