Backward Pawn
A pawn that lags behind pawns of the same color on adjacent files and cannot safely advance.
Backward pawns are often blockaded and become targets, since the square directly in front of them frequently becomes a strong outpost for the opponent.
Etymology
Backward is native English, from c. 1300, and acquired the transferred sense “behindhand with regard to progress” in the 1690s — exactly the chess meaning: a pawn that has fallen behind its neighbours and can no longer safely catch up. The idea long predates the label: Philidor's English Analysis (1777) already explains the opponent's plan to leave a pawn “behind” and “useless.” The earliest occurrence of the fixed phrase found in this research is Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals (1921), whose section 32 shows “the weakness of a backward Q B P.” It does not appear as a set phrase in any of the pre-1920 English texts searched in full.
First documented: 1921 — Capablanca, Chess Fundamentals (1921), section 32
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.