a round metal container or vessel, usu with a long handle, used for cooking food on the hob of a cooker or over an open fire to heat or cook food

any of various usu broad, shallow, and open receptacles for domestic use, e.g. a dustpan or a bedpan

either of the receptacles in a pair of scales

a round shallow metal container for separating a heavy mineral, e.g. gold, from lighter waste by washing

Brit the bowl of a toilet

the part of the gunlock in old guns or pistols that holds a small charge of powder directly ignited, e.g. by the spark from the flint, to set off the main charge

a natural or artificial hollow or depression in land, e.g. a saltpan

a drifting fragment of the flat thin ice that forms in bays or along the shore

a compacted often clayey layer in soil that is impenetrable to plant roots; hardpan

a drum in a steel band

to wash earth or, gravel, etc in a pan in search of metal, e.g. gold

to yield precious metal in panning

informal to subject (a person, their work, a product, etc) to damning criticism

Some new American cars have been panned as dumpy and boring — The Economist

to rotate (a film or television camera) horizontally so as to keep a moving object in view or obtain a panoramic effect

said of a camera: to undergo panning

to cause (a camera) to pan

the act or process of panning a camera

the movement of the camera in a panning shot