paan
/pɑːn/
paan noun: a psychoactive preparation of betel leaf combined with areca nut and/or cured tobacco, chewed recreationally in Asia; such a preparation served wrapped in the leaf.
Noun
paan (countable and uncountable, plural paans)
- A psychoactive preparation of betel leaf combined with areca nut and/or cured tobacco, chewed recreationally in Asia; such a preparation served wrapped in the leaf.
- ‘I am an Indian, it is an Indian habit to take pan. The Civil Surgeon must put up with it.’1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin, published 2005, page 13
- A paan consists of chopped or shredded nut (always referred to as betel nut, though in fact it comes from the areca palm), wrapped in a leaf (which does come from the betel tree).[…]The triangular package thus formed is wedged inside your cheek and chewed slowly, and in the case of chuna and zarda...2003, David Abram, Nick Edwards, The Rough Guide to South India, Rough Guides, page 52
paan meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali
paan in Hindi
- psychoactive preparation of betel leaf
- पान pān, बीड़ा bīṛā
paan in Tamil
- psychoactive preparation of betel leaf
- தாம்பூலம் tāmpūlam, வெற்றிலை பாக்கு veṟṟilai pākku
paan in Marathi
- psychoactive preparation of betel leaf
- विडा viḍā
paan in Bengali
- psychoactive preparation of betel leaf
- পান pan
More languagesFewer languages
- paan in Telugu
- తాంబూలము tāmbūlamu
- paan in Malayalam
- മുറുക്കാൻ muṟukkāṉ
- paan in Kannada
- ತಾಂಬೂಲ tāmbūla
- paan in Punjabi
- ਪਾਨ pān
- paan in Odia
- ଖିଲିପାନ khilipāna
- paan in Assamese
- পাণ pan
- paan in Nepali
- पान pān
- paan in Tagalog
- nganga, hitso, mam-in
- paan in Malay
- bersirih, menginang
- paan in Indonesian
- menginang, menyiri
- paan in Persian
- تانبول tânbul, پان pân
- paan in Thai
- หมาก màak
- paan in Vietnamese
- trầu
- paan in Myanmar
- ကွမ်းယာ kwam:ya
Examples of paan in a sentence
- Perched outside Madhavbagh Temple, decorated with antique mirrors, this 100-year-old shop serves up juicy paans, plump with mawa.2005, Rashmi Uday Singh, Mumbai by Night, page 142:
- In north India, paan sellers then spread red-coloured syrup (extracted from a native plant) over the lime paste.2006, M. R. Narayan Swamy, New Delhi, page 31:
Forms of paan
| plural | paans |
|---|---|
| alternative form | pan |
| alternative form | pawn |
Origin of paan
Borrowed from Hindi पान (pān). Possible doublet of fern via Proto-Indo-European *pornóm.
Questions about paan
- What does paan mean?
- Paan means a psychoactive preparation of betel leaf combined with areca nut and/or cured tobacco, chewed recreationally in Asia; such a preparation served wrapped in the leaf.
- What is paan in Hindi?
- Paan in Hindi is पान (pān), बीड़ा (bīṛā). See Paan meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use paan in a sentence?
- Perched outside Madhavbagh Temple, decorated with antique mirrors, this 100-year-old shop serves up juicy paans, plump with mawa.
- What part of speech is paan?
- Paan is a noun.
- How do you pronounce paan?
- Paan is pronounced /pɑːn/.
- What is the plural of paan?
- The plural of paan is paans.
Words near paan in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: paan (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-paan.wav.
Cite this entry: “paan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.