pan

This word is not just for the kitchen. Most often, it means a shallow, wide container used for cooking, like a frying pan or cake pan. But it also works as a verb. Someone can pan for gold by washing sand and gravel in a shallow dish, hoping the heavier gold stays behind.

It also appears in film and photography. If a camera pans, it moves from side to side to show more of a scene. In another common sense, a critic can pan a movie, play, or book, meaning to judge it very harshly. There is also the prefix pan-, from Greek, meaning "all," as in Pan-American or pan-European.

The word "pan" covers several meanings that come from different histories. The most common one today is a shallow container used for cooking or holding things. You might fry eggs in a frying pan, bake brownies in a cake pan, or place ingredients in a pan before they go into the oven. This basic idea of a broad, open container is the meaning most learners will meet first.

As a verb, "pan" has a few important uses. In gold mining, to pan for gold means to wash sand or gravel in a shallow dish so that gold, if present, can be separated out. In photography and filmmaking, to pan means to move a camera horizontally, usually to follow a subject or reveal more of a place. In reviews, to pan something means to criticize it very harshly, as when a reviewer pans a new film.

There is also pan- as a prefix, and this is a different but very common part of English. From Greek, it means "all" or "including everything," which is why we see it in words such as pandemic, Pan-American, and pan-European. So depending on the context, this small word might point to a kitchen tool, a camera movement, gold washing, strong criticism, or the idea of something broad and all-inclusive.