Word.ws English Dictionary

pan

UK/pæn/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/pan/

pan noun: a wide, flat receptacle used around the house, especially for cooking. Also the ellipsis of salt pan.

pan: a wide, flat receptacle used around the house, especially for cooking
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

pan (plural pans or (humorous) pen)

  1. A wide, flat receptacle used around the house, especially for cooking.
  2. The contents of such a receptacle.
  3. A cylindrical receptacle about as tall as it is wide, with one long handle, usually made of metal, used for cooking in the home.
    Synonyms:
    saucepan
  4. (Ireland) A deep plastic receptacle, used for washing or food preparation; a basin.
  5. A wide receptacle in which gold grains are separated from gravel by washing the contents with water.
  6. A pond or lake, considered as the expanse of land upon which the water sits.
  7. (South Africa, especially) A dry lake or playa, especially a salt flat.
  8. (South Africa) Synonym of playa lake: a temporary pond or lake in a playa.
    Synonyms:
    playa lake
  9. (South Africa, obsolete) Synonym of pipe: a channel for lava within a volcano; the cylindrical remains of such channels.
    Synonyms:
    pipe
  10. Strong adverse criticism.
    • The notices The Gallery received, while hardly pans, were only mixed.1977 August 20, Robert Etherington, “John Horne Burns and His Enemies”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 10
  11. (Ireland) A loaf of bread; a pan-loaf.
  12. (obsolete) The chamber pot in a close stool; (now) the base of a toilet, consisting of the bowl and its support.
    Synonyms:
    chamber pot, toilet
Show 8 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. A bedpan.
    • She yanks the pan out from under me & it spills all over the bed. Then she's got to change the sheets! Unreal.1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
  2. (slang) A human face, a mug.
    • "He's a foreign-looking guy with thinnish black hair and a meaty sort of pan."1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 121
    • Dave and I have parted company, and I hope I never see his junky pan again.1993, William S. Burroughs, edited by Oliver Harris, The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1945–1959, New York: Penguin, →ISBN, page 92
  3. The bottom flat part of a roofing panel that is between the ribs of the panel.
  4. A closed vessel for boiling or evaporating as part of manufacture; a vacuum pan.
  5. The part of a matchlock, flintlock, or wheellock firearm that holds the priming.
    • Holonym: firearm
    • flash in the pan
  6. The skull, considered as a vessel containing the brain; the brainpan.
  7. (figuratively) The brain, seen as one's intellect.
    • 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: The Friar's Tale,
      Unto the devil rough and black of hue
      Give I thy body and my pan also."
  8. A recess, or bed, for the leaf of a hinge.

Verb (1)

pan (third-person singular simple present pans, present participle panning, simple past and past participle panned)

  1. (transitive) To wash in a pan (of earth, sand etc. when searching for gold).
    • We […] witnessed the process of cleaning up and panning out, which is the last process of separating the pure gold from the fine dirt and black sand.1875, William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs
  2. (transitive) To disparage; to belittle; to put down; to harshly criticize, especially a work (book, movie, etc.)
    • Matt Damon, who compared the advent of virtual money to the development of aviation and spaceflight in a critically panned but widely seen Crypto.com ad last year, did not respond to requests to weigh in.2022 May 17, Tiffany Hsu, “All Those Celebrities Pushing Crypto Are Not So Vocal Now”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  3. (intransitive, to pan out) To turn out well; to be successful.
  4. (informal, transitive) To beat one's opposition convincingly.

Verb (2)

pan (third-person singular simple present pans, present participle panning, simple past and past participle panned)

  1. (intransitive) (of a camera) To turn horizontally.
    • Later today in Finsbury Park, the cameras would spend hours panning across 35,000 festivalgoers in search of pickpockets, drunken brawlers, and other assorted agents of petty mischief.2018 February, Robert Draper, “They are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet: Technology and Our Increasing Demand for Security have Put Us All under Surveillance. Is Privacy Becoming just...
  2. (intransitive) To move the camera lens angle while continuing to expose the film, enabling a contiguous view and enrichment of context. In still-photography large-group portraits the film usually remains on a horizontal fixed plane as the lens and/or the film holder moves to expose the film laterally. The resulting image may extend a short distance laterally or as great as 360° from the point where the film first began to be exposed.
    • As one can only "pan" at 90 deg. to the direction of movement of the subject, a compromise has to be reached when shooting at more conventional angles between a shutter speed high enough to arrest the forward movement of the subject and one low enough to blur the valve motion and wheels.1957 January, A. M. Ross, “Letters to the Editor: Impressions of Speed”, in Railway Magazine, page 60
  3. (intransitive, imaging) To shift an image relative to the display window without changing the viewing scale.
  4. (transitive, sound engineering) To spread a sound signal into a new stereo or multichannel sound field, typically giving the impression that it is moving across the sound stage.
  5. (intransitive, sound engineering) (of a sound) To move in the multichannel sound field.

Noun (2)

pan (plural pans)

  1. A sequence in a film in which the camera pans over an area.
    • For instance, in the film Dances with Wolves, a pan of an uninhabited landscape contrasts the gruesome beginning footage that depicts the carnage of war.2013, Monle Lee, Carla Johnson, Principles of Advertising: A Global Perspective, page 197

Verb (3)

pan (third-person singular simple present pans, present participle panning, simple past and past participle panned)

  1. To join or fit together; to unite.
    • 31 May 1884, Leeds Mercury
      Pan it down—press an article into its proper place
    • The plants can either be sold individually in the 3 inch pots as Valentine favors , or several may be panned together in larger pots1963, Grower Talks

Noun (3)

pan (plural pans)

  1. A part; a portion.
  2. The distance comprised between the angle of the epaule and the flanked angle.
  3. A leaf of gold or silver.

Adjective

pan (not comparable)

  1. (informal) Pansexual or panromantic.
    • When she publicly acknowledged that she is pan, it educated citizens near and far on what that sexuality meant and the importance of being proud of who you are.2012 December 28, Anna Waugh, “Texas got a pansexual legislator”, in Dallas Voice, volume 29, number 33, page 9
    • Another anonymous pansexual disclosed, "Sometimes I feel really left out because I'm pan. […] "2013, Alejandra Rodriguez, "Isn't That Bisexual?", Outwrite, Fall 2013, page 7

Proper noun (1) capitalized: PAN

PAN

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of Proto-Austronesian.

Noun (4) capitalized: PAN

PAN (countable and uncountable, plural PANs)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of personal area network.
  2. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of primary account number.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of peroxyacetyl nitrate.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of phenylacetonitrile.
    Synonyms:
    benzeneacetonitrile, benzylcyanide
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of polyacrylonitrile.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Pan

Pan

  1. (Greek) Greek god of nature, often visualized as half goat and half man playing pipes.
    • Near-synonyms: Faunus, Pales (Roman counterparts, not identical)
    Synonyms:
    Faunus, Pales
  2. An inner moon of the planet Saturn, notable for its equatorial ridge.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Pan

Pan (plural Pans)

  1. A surname.

Noun (5) capitalized: Pan

Pan (plural Pans)

  1. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Peter Pan.

Proper noun (4) capitalized: Pan

Pan

  1. A suburb of Newport, Isle of Wight, England (OS grid ref SZ5088).

Proper noun (5) capitalized: Pan

the Pan

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang) The workhouse in St Pancras, London.

Also used as

pan is also the ellipsis of salt pan.

pan is also the ellipsis of hardpan.

pan is also the ellipsis of steelpan.

pan is also the alternative form of paan.

pan is also the clipping of pantograph.

pan meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Telugu

pan in Hindi

पैन करना

pan in Marathi

पॅन करणे

pan in Bengali

প্যান করা

pan in Telugu

flat vessel used for cooking — see also frying pan
పెనం penaṁ
More languagesFewer languages
pan in Punjabi
ਪੈਨ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
pan in Odia
ପ୍ଯ଼ାନ କରିବା
pan in Nepali
प्यान गर्न
pan in Arabic
مِقْلَاة miqlāh, ينتقد بشدَة
pan in Malay
kuali, mendulang
pan in Persian
ماهی تابه
pan in Thai
กระทะ grà-tá
pan in Vietnamese
chảo, cái giần, cái lòng chảo, sự chỉ trích

Examples of pan in a sentence

  • Whether the Prime was wet in the Pan, or by what other Miracle it was I escap’d his Fury, I cannot say […]1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of...
  • And he took down one with a snatch and weighed it in his hand, and fell to thinking again; and, as he did, kept opening and shutting the pan with a snap, […]1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:
  • A similar experience is shared by individuals who identify their sexuality as pan, bi or queer.2013, Megan Hertner, "Understanding Gender and Sexuality", Grapevine (Huron University College), December 2013, page 19

All 40 example sentences with pan

Synonyms of pan

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of pan

Forms of pan

Noun
pluralpans
pluralPANs
pluralPans
plural (humorous)pen
Verb
third-person singular presentpans
present participlepanning
past participlepanned
pastpanned
Proper noun
pluralPans

Past tense of pan: panned

Plural of pan: pans

Origin of pan

From Middle English panne, from Old English panne, from Proto-West Germanic *pannā, from Proto-Germanic *pannǭ. Further origin uncertain. Alois Walde firstly suggests that it might be from Late Latin panna, from Latin patina (“broad, shallow dish, pan, stewpan”), from Ancient Greek πατάνη (patánē, “kind of flat dish”), which is probably from Pre-Greek. But the sound shifting from /patina/ → /patna/ → /panna/ raises questions as -tn- to -nn- is rarely seen in Latin. The mainstream theory as of now (Friedrich Kluge, Julius Pokorny, Guus Kroonen) suggests that it is from Late Latin panna. But its sparse attestation only in the frontier inscriptions and not widespread in most Romance languages raises doubts among a few scholars (notably Michiel de Vaan), being skeptical about its origin, and open for any interpretations (Oxford English Dictionary). Vladmir Orel, in his work Albanian Etymological Dictionary, suggests that both Proto-Germanic *pannǭ and Late Latin panna could be from a non-IE Mediterranean substrate word, considering that classical Latin attestations are scarce and distributed in a specific region, and Proto-Germanic loanwords from non-IE substrates often include...

Clipping of panorama.

Of unknown origin.

Words formed from pan

Phrases with pan

60 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with pan

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pan

What does pan mean?
Pan means a wide, flat receptacle used around the house, especially for cooking.
What is pan in Hindi?
Pan in Hindi is पैन करना. See Pan meaning in Hindi.
How do you use pan in a sentence?
Whether the Prime was wet in the Pan, or by what other Miracle it was I escap’d his Fury, I cannot say […]
What part of speech is pan?
Pan can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce pan?
Pan is pronounced /pæn/ (UK).
What is the plural of pan?
The plural of pan is pans.

Words near pan in the dictionary

  1. Pamunkeys
  2. Pamutan
  3. PAMV
  4. Pamyat
  5. Pamyats
  6. pan
  7. Pan Am smile
  8. Pan Am smiles
  9. pan and scan
  10. pan and scans
  11. pan bagnat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pan (page history and authors); PAN (page history and authors); Pan (page history and authors); pan (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pan (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pan (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pan (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pan (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pan (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-pan.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.