pan, noun [OE. See 2d Pane.]

1. A part; a portion.

2. (Fort.) The distance comprised between the angle of the epaule and the flanked angle.

3. [Perh. a different word.] A leaf of gold or silver.

Pan, transitive or intransitive verb [Cf. F. pan skirt, lappet, L. pannus a cloth, rag, W. panu to fur, to full.] To join or fit together; to unite. [Obs.] Halliwell.

Pan, noun [Hind. pān, Skr. parna leaf.] The betel leaf; also, the masticatory made of the betel leaf, etc. See Betel.

Pan, proper noun [L., fr. Gr. ] (Gr. Myth.) The god of shepherds, guardian of bees, and patron of fishing and hunting. He is usually represented as having the head and trunk of a man, with the legs, horns, and tail of a goat, and as playing on the shepherd’s pipe (also called the pipes of Pan), which he is said to have invented.

Pan, noun [OE. panne, AS. panne; cf. D. pan, G. pfanne, OHG. pfanna, Icel., Sw., LL., & Ir. panna, of uncertain origin; cf. L. patina, E. paten.]

1. 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.

“A bowl or a pan.” Chaucer.

2. (Manuf.) A closed vessel for boiling or evaporating. See Vacuum pan, under Vacuum.

3. The part of a flintlock which holds the priming.

4. The skull, considered as a vessel containing the brain; the upper part of the head; the brainpan; the cranium. Chaucer.

5. (Carp.) A recess, or bed, for the leaf of a hinge.

6. The hard stratum of earth that lies below the soil. See Hard pan, under Hard.

7. A natural basin, containing salt or fresh water, or mud.

Flash in the pan

See under Flash.

To savor of the pan

to suggest the process of cooking or burning; in a theological sense, to be heretical. Ridley. Southey.

Pan, transitive verb [imperfect or past participle Panned; present participle or verbal noun Panning.]

(Mining) To separate, as gold, from dirt or sand, by washing in a kind of pan. [U. S.]

Pan, intransitive verb

1. (Mining) To yield gold in, or as in, the process of panning; – usually with out; as, the gravel panned out richly.

2. To turn out (profitably or unprofitably); to result; to develop; as, the investigation, or the speculation, panned out poorly. [Slang, U. S.]

Pan-, Pan′ta-, Pan′to-. [Gr. m., neut., gen. all.] Combining forms signifying all, every; as, panorama, pantheism, pantagraph, pantograph. Pan- becomes pam- before b or p, as pamprodactylous. Pan′to-. See Pan-.

-- Websters 1913