pan1

noun

• 1a metal container used for cooking food in: heat the olive oil in a heavy pan
• an amount of something contained in a pan:a pan of hot water

• 2a bowl or other container, in particular:
• a bowl fitted at either end of a pair of scales: she sifted flour on to the wide brass pan of the scales
• British the bowl of a toilet: peroxide is what they put down the lavatory to disinfect the pan
• a large container used in a technical or manufacturing process for subjecting a material to heat or a mechanical or chemical process.
• a steel drum.
• a shallow bowl in which gold is separated from gravel and mud by agitation and washing: he washed the gold-free surface gravel out over the rim of the pan
• a part of the lock that held the priming in old types of gun: prime the pan, pour the powder down the barrel, then ram in the cartridge’s paper and ball

• 3a hard stratum of compacted soil: heavy spikes can be useful in breaking a surface pan in grassland

• 4a hollow in the ground in which water may collect or in which a deposit of salt remains after water has evaporated.

• 5US informal a person’s face.

verb (pans, panning, panned)

• 1 informal criticize 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
• [no object] (pan out) (of gravel) yield gold.