pan
part of speech
noun (pan, pans); verb (pan, pans, panned, panning)
meaning for a pupil
1) A pan is a metal pot for cooking food, often with a long handle, like a frying pan or saucepan. tree →
2) A pan is also one of the two dishes of a balance scale. tree →
3) A baking pan or tin holds cakes in the oven. tree →
4) To pan for gold is to wash river sand in a pan to find gold. tree →
5) To pan a film is to say it is very bad. tree →
sense in the lessons
In school maths: a kitchen thing counted; cakes or cookies baked in pans («per pan» is a group size); the two pans of a scale. In everyday life: frying eggs in a pan, washing pans after dinner. In history: gold rush miners panned for gold in California, Australia and New Zealand. Phrases: «frying pan», «saucepan», «out of the frying pan into the fire» (from bad to worse).
examples
- Each pan holds 12 cookies. tree →
- She bakes 3 pans of muffins. tree →
- Put 2 weights on the left pan. tree →
- How many pans are needed for 50 rolls? tree →
- Dad fried the eggs in a pan. tree →
- Careful, the pan is very hot! tree →
- Miners panned for gold in the river. tree →
- Grease the cake pan before you pour in the mix. tree →
- Out of the frying-pan into the fire. tree →
note
Countable: «a pan». «Pot» is deeper; «pan» is often wider and flatter. Maths: often «per pan» — a group size, so total = pans × each. Trap: on a scale, both pans must weigh the same when it balances. Safety: turn pan handles away from the edge of the cooker.
In the corpora
- The steel pan was developed in Trinidad and Tobago in the 20th century from oil drums and is its national instrument.
- Pan-pipes are a row of reed pipes of different lengths tied together and blown across the top.
- Sugar burns to black carbon in a hot pan; salt does not burn.
- The big bubbles at the bottom of a pan of boiling water are pockets of water that has turned into gas.
- A sieve lets fine flour through and keeps lumps; long ago gold miners used pans and sieves to wash gold from river gravel.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «pan» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.