pan [OE] The word pan in the sense of something you cook with is a common West Germanic word, which may have been an early borrowing from Latin patina ‘dish’. The same Latin word is the source, via Italian, of patina [M18th], perhaps because of the green film that appears on old copper dishes. The verb to pan out [M19th] comes from the use of a shallow pan to get gold from river sand. See also panic, panorama.