The word pwn originally comes from the infamous Alexander Alekhine (http://tinyurl.com/9byqo) who was one of the great Grandmasters of Chess. His dominating openings of using his pawns was to control the crucial center spaces of the board. During his matches, Alekhine was known to drink heavily and spout anti-semetic remarks. In a match in 1935 against a Dutch master named Euwe his drinking had gotten the better of him. Before starting the match he said to Euwe in a very broken heavily accented russian voice "I will pawn to your knight" (a common variation of his defense was to box his opponents knights using 2 pawns and his white bishop) which ended up sounding like "Evil pwn you tonight". Unfortunatly for Alehkine he gave away his gameplan which Euwe was able to take advantage of. Alehkine lost the match.
The word pwn has resurfaced from time to time in the chess community. It looks like it has finally found it's place in history along with it's founder Alehkine.

PWN (verb)

1. An act of dominating an opponent.

2. Great, ingenious; applied to methods and objects.

Originally dates back to the days of WarCraft, when a map designer mispelled "Own" as "Pwn". What was originally supose to be "player has been owned." was "player has been pwned".

Pwn eventually grew from there and is now used throughout the online world, especially in online games.

Perfect ownage. Flawless victory. Schooled. Lesson taught. Owned beyond conventional words, and so excited about it, it's mistyped. Usually proceeded by noob.

Pronunciation: (pôn) Originally a misspelling of the word own, as in to totally have a skillful advantage over someone or something pwn is to more than just own; to pwn.

The word Pwn was originally a typo from when the writer wanted to say Own. Pwn is commonly used in internet games, for example: Counter-Strike. Pwn is used to explain that the player was badly beaten.

A word, originating from a mispelled version of the word "own", used to describe a dominance of one person over another, usually in a video game.

pwn (vt. or vi.) 1. to defeat (someone)thoroughly or to a great extent 2. to outdo or outmatch (someone) past tense - pwnt or pwned ( ? < leet speak/gaming terminology p + (o)wn)

v. To dominate another, often in online gaming.

Originally a misspelling, 'pwn' has come to also be considered a contraction of the 'Perfect Own" of an opponent.

History: Pwn first surfaced in online play in 1992 - 1993 when MMORPGs were better known as MUDs. Pwn reached it's peak as a standard term amongst game players around the time of Bungie's Battle.Net (1997-).

Pwn has been absorbed into other common online-originating language mediums since then, such as Leet Speak and Singlish.

Other Uses:
Pwning, Pwnage, Pwned (past tense), Pwnt (past tense).