pan

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A shallow, wide, open container, usually of metal and without a lid, used for holding liquids, cooking, and other domestic purposes.
2. n. A vessel similar in form to a pan, especially:
3. n. An open metal dish used to separate gold or other metal from gravel or waste by washing.
4. n. Either of the receptacles on a balance or pair of scales.
5. n. A vessel used for boiling and evaporating liquids.
6. n. A basin or depression in the earth, often containing mud or water.
7. n. A natural or artificial basin used to obtain salt by evaporating brine.
8. n. Hardpan.
9. n. A freely floating piece of ice that has broken off a larger floe.
10. n. The small cavity in the lock of a flintlock used to hold powder.
11. n. Music A steel drum.
12. n. Slang The face.
13. n. Informal Severe criticism, especially a negative review: gave the film a pan.
14. v. To wash (gravel, for example) in a pan for gold or other precious metal.
15. v. To cook (food) in a pan: panned the fish right after catching it.
16. v. Informal To criticize or review harshly.
17. v. To wash gravel, sand, or other sediment in a pan.
18. v. To yield gold as a result of washing in a pan.
19. pan out To turn out well; be successful: "If I don't pan out as an actor I can still go back to school” ( Saul Bellow).
20. n. A leaf of the betel vine.
21. n. A chewing preparation of this leaf with betel nuts, spices, and lime, used in the Far East.
22. v. To move a movie or television camera to follow an object or create a panoramic effect.
23. v. To move (a camera) so as to follow a moving object or create a panoramic effect.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A broad shallow vessel of tin, iron, or other metal, used for various domestic purposes: as, a frying-pan; a saucepan; a milk-pan.
2. n. An open vessel used in the arts and manufactures for boiling, evaporating, etc.: as, a sugar-pan; a salt-pan. The name is also applied to closed vessels used for similar purposes: as, a vacuum-pan.
3. n. In metallurgy, a pan-shaped vessel, usually made of cast-iron, from 4 to 6 feet in diameter and 3 or 4 feet deep, in which the ores of silver which have already undergone the stamping process are ground to a fine pulp and amalgamated, with the addition of various chemicals, generally sulphate of copper and salt. This process, which is a kind of modification of the patio process, is extensively used in the mills on the Comstock lodes, and is frequently called the Washoe process.
4. n. In tin-plate manuf., a cold pot with a grating at the bottom, in which tinned iron-plate is put on edge to drain and cool. It is the fourth in the series of iron pots used in tin-plate manufacture.
5. n. The part of a flint-lock which holds the priming, communicating with the charge by means of the touch-hole. See cut under flint-lock.
6. n. Anything hollow shaped somewhat like a pan; hence, the skull; the upper part of the head; the cranium. Compare brainpan.
7. n. A pond or depression for evaporating salt water to make salt.
8. n. A natural pond of any size containing fresh or salt water, or only mud.
9. n. Consolidated material underlying the soil: used (especially in Scotland) for hard-pan.
10. n. In carpentry, the socket for a hinge.
11. n. In the arctic seas, a large heavy piece of floe-ice.
12. n. The broad posterior extremity of the lower jaw of a whale: a whalers' term.
13. In mining, to wash with the pan, as gravel or sands for the purpose of separating the gold or other thing of value they may contain: often with out.
14. To secure; catch; obtain.
15. To make an appearance or to come to view, as gold in a miner's pan when washed from impurities; hence to show a result; turn out more or less to one's satisfaction: followed by out.
16. To join; close together.
17. To unite; fit; agree.
18. n. In anc. Gr. myth., the god of pastures, forests, and flocks. The original seat of his worship was in Arcadia, whence it gradually spread over the rest of Greece. He was represented with the head and chest of an elderly man, while his lower parts were like the hind quarters of a goat, of which animal he often bore the horns and ears also. He was fond of music, and of dancing with the forest nymphs, and was the inventor of the syrinx or shepherds flute, hence termed Pans pipes or Pandean pipes. (See pans pipes, under pipe.) Sudden terror without visible or reasonable cause was attributed to his influence (see panic). The Romans identified the Greek pan with their own god Inuus, and sometimes also with Faunus (see faun).
19. n. A square of framing in half-timbered houses. Gwilt.
20. n. A leaf of gold or silver.
21. n. A betel-leaf in which an areca-nut is wrapped to form a masticatory. See betel, areca-nut.
22. n. An element in many words of Greek origin, meaning ‘all’, ‘universal.’ It is used also as an English formative, as in pan-American, involving all Americans, or all the Americas; Pan-presbyterian, involving all presbyterians; pan-Anglican, etc.
23. n. In mining, a hollow in the ground where the neck of a volcano formerly existed.
24. To broil or bake in a pan.
25. To pour with a pan.
26. To look for gold, using the method of washing the earth or crushed rock in the pan.
27. In agriculture, to harden and cake from the effect of hot sunshine following rain: said of the soil.

Wiktionary

1. n. A wide, flat receptacle used around the house, especially for cooking
2. n. The contents of such a receptacle
3. n. A cylindrical receptacle about as tall as it is wide, with one long handle, usually made of metal, used for cooking in the home
4. n. A wide receptacle in which gold grains are separated from gravel by washing the contents with water
5. n. geography a specific type of lake, natural depression or basin. They are sometimes associated with desert areas
6. n. Strong adverse criticism
7. n. A loaf of bread
8. n. The base part of a toilet, consisting of a bowl and a footing
9. n. slang A human face, a mug.
10. n. roofing The bottom flat part of a roofing panel that is between the ribs of the panel
11. v. transitive To wash in a pan (of earth, sand etc. when searching for gold).
12. v. transitive To disparage; to belittle; to put down; to criticise severely.
13. v. intransitive With "out" (to pan out), to turn out well; to be successful.
14. v. transitive, informal, of a contest To beat one's opposition convincingly.
15. v. to turn horizontally (of a camera etc.)
16. v. intransitive (photography) 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 degrees from the point where the film first began to be exposed.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A part; a portion.
2. n. (Fort.) The distance comprised between the angle of the epaule and the flanked angle.
3. n. A leaf of gold or silver.
4. v. obsolete To join or fit together; to unite.
5. n. The betel leaf; also, the masticatory made of the betel leaf, etc. See betel.
6. n. A shallow, open dish or vessel, usually of metal, employed for many domestic uses, as for setting milk for cream, for frying or baking food, etc.; also employed for various uses in manufacturing.
7. n. (Manuf.) A closed vessel for boiling or evaporating. See Vacuum pan, under Vacuum.
8. n. The part of a flintlock which holds the priming.
9. n. The skull, considered as a vessel containing the brain; the upper part of the head; the brainpan; the cranium.
10. n. (Carp.) A recess, or bed, for the leaf of a hinge.
11. n. The hard stratum of earth that lies below the soil. See Hard pan, under Hard.
12. n. A natural basin, containing salt or fresh water, or mud.
13. v. (Mining), United States To separate, as gold, from dirt or sand, by washing in a kind of pan.
14. v. To criticise (a drama or literary work) harshly.
15. v. (Mining) To yield gold in, or as in, the process of panning; -- usually with out.
16. v. Slang, U. S. To turn out (profitably or unprofitably); to result; to develop.
17. v. (Cinematography) To scan (a movie camera), usu. in a horizontal direction, to obtain a panoramic effect; also, to move the camera so as to keep the subject in view.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. shallow container made of metal
2. v. make a sweeping movement
3. n. (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
4. v. wash dirt in a pan to separate out the precious minerals
5. n. cooking utensil consisting of a wide metal vessel
6. v. express a totally negative opinion of
7. n. chimpanzees; more closely related to Australopithecus than to other pongids