pan1

noun

• 1a container made of metal and used for cooking food in.
• an amount of something contained in a pan:a pan of hot water
• a large container used in a technical or manufacturing process for subjecting a material to heat or a mechanical or chemical process.
• a bowl fitted at either end of a balance, in which items to be weighed are set.
• another term for steel drum.
• a shallow bowl in which gold is separated from gravel and mud by agitation and washing.
• a hollow in the ground in which water may collect or in which a deposit of salt remains after water has evaporated.
• a part of the lock that held the priming in old types of guns.

• 2US informal a person’s face.

• 3a hard stratum of compacted soil.

verb (pans, panned, panning)

• 1 informal criticize (someone or something) severely:the movie was panned by the critics

• 2wash gravel in a pan to separate out (gold):the old-timers panned gold [no object]:prospectors panned for gold in the Yukon
• (of gravel) yield gold.