Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Chiefly British A long-handled stewing pan or saucepan sometimes having legs.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small vessel of iron, copper, or other metal, generally having a long nandle and three or Four legs, used for heating and boiling water, stewing meat, and other culinary purposes.
  • noun A rattle or bell used by common criers.
  • noun A ship's cook; a “pot-wrestler” or potwalloper.
  • noun In metal-working, a form into which the precious metals are run for sale and use as bullion, flatter than an ingot.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small vessel of iron, copper, or other metal, with a handle, used for culinary purpose, as for stewing meat.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US A pan for frying, generally large and heavy.
  • noun US A dish or meal cooked in such a pan.
  • noun US, as a modifier Cooked in a skillet.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a pan used for frying foods

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English skelett, from Old French escuelete, diminutive of escuele, plate, from Latin scutella, diminutive of scutra, platter.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French escuelette, diminutive of escuelle a porringer, (French écuelle), from Latin scutella, diminutive of scutra, scuta, a dish. Compare scuttle a basket.

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Examples

Comments

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  • a meagre talent

    July 5, 2008

  • Good one sionnach! What you can do for me with bullet?

    July 5, 2008

  • Well, many people are misled by the word bullet, mistakenly thinking it has something to do with ballistics, or that it has some kind of bovine origins.

    But my exhaustive researches establish that it actually designates a kind of amuse-bouche that was considered a rare delicacy in the seraglios and harems of Mesopotamia and the fertile crescent, during the heyday of these establishments. Basically a kind of Nightingale McNugget in the caliph's own secret savory dipping sauce, each bullet had as its basic ingredient half a baby nightingale.

    When we recall that the local word for nightingale is bulbul, the etymological derivation is immediate.

    July 6, 2008

  • Worthy! I'm sure this is where the phrase bite the bullet comes from.

    July 6, 2008

  • Wonderful etymological research, sionnach. Presumably "taking a bullet for the team" is derived from the word?

    July 7, 2008

  • Chapeau! Nach -- I bet you've never, ever received a speeding ticket, have you?

    July 7, 2008