1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pan

PAN (common in various forms to many Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Pfanne; it is generally taken to be an early adaptation in a shortened form of Lat. patina, shallow bowl or dish, from patere, to lie open), a term applied to various sorts of open, flat, shallow vessels. Its application has been greatly extended by analogy, e.g. to the upper part of the skull; to variously shaped objects capable of retaining substances, such as that part of the lock in early firearms which held the priming (whence the expression " flash in the pan," for a premature and futile effort); or the circular metal dish in which gold is separated from gravel, earth, &c., by shaking or washing (whence the phrase " to pan out," to obtain a good result). Small ice-floes are also called " pans," and the name is given to a hard substratum of soil which acts as a floor to the surface soil and is usually impervious to water. For "pan" or "pane" in architecture see Half-timber Work.

The Hindostani pān is the betel-leaf, which, mixed with areca-nut, lime, &c., is chewed by the natives of the East Indies.

The common prefix " pan," signifying universal, all-embracing (Gr. πᾶς, all), is often combined with the names of races, nationalities and religions, conveying an aspiration for the political or spiritual union of all the units of the nation or creed; familiar examples arc Pan-Slavonic, Pan-German, Pan-Islamism, Pan-Anglican, Pan-American.