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pan

/pæn/ noun

In Latin: patina, sartago Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about pan at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

  1. Cooking utensil consisting of a wide metal vessel.
  2. (Greek mythology) god of fields and woods and shepherds and flocks; represented as a man with goat's legs and horns and ears; identified with Roman Sylvanus or Faunus.
  3. Shallow container made of metal.

verb

  1. Make a sweeping movement.
    The camera panned across the room
  2. Wash dirt in a pan to separate out the precious minerals.
  3. Express a totally negative opinion of.
    The critics panned the performance

Origin

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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)