pan

pan1 [ pæn ] noun count **

▸ 1 container for cooking

▸ 2 part of set of scales

▸ 3 steel drum

▸ 4 for separating gold

▸ 5 part of toilet

▸ + PHRASES

1. ) a round metal container used for cooking, with a handle and usually a lid. A saucepan has tall sides and a frying pan is wider with shorter sides and usually no lid:

Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onion over a gentle heat.

pots and pans: There was plenty of space in the kitchen for storing pots and pans.

a ) the contents of a pan, or the amount that a pan holds:

a pan of boiling water

b ) AMERICAN a metal container used for baking. British tin:

a cake pan

=> BEDPAN, DUSTPAN

2. ) a container shaped like a dish on a set of SCALES used for holding things you want to weigh

3. ) a STEEL DRUM. This word is used mainly by people who play these drums.

4. ) a large flat bowl used for separating gold from other substances in the ground using water

5. ) BRITISH the BOWL of a toilet

(go) down the pan BRITISH INFORMAL

to fail or be spoiled

=> FLASH 2

pan

pan 2 [ pæn ] verb

1. ) transitive INFORMAL to criticize someone or something very strongly

2. ) intransitive or transitive if a camera pans or you pan it, it moves sideways slowly to film something else or to follow something that is moving

3. ) intransitive to try to find small pieces of gold among stones by washing the stones in a pan

,pan `out phrasal verb intransitive INFORMAL

if a situation pans out in a particular way, it develops in that way:

Let's see how things pan out before we decide.