pancake

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English panne-cake, also pankake and ponkake,^[2][3] formed from English pan + cake.^{[4][3][5][6][7]} The OED compares the parallel compounds in the other Germanic languages: Middle Dutch pannekoeke, now pannenkoek, Middle Low German pankōke, Old High German pfankuohho, now Pfannkuchen, and Danish pandekage.^[4] The word is found earlier as a surname: Mark Panecak, or Panekake, in 1283.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thin flat cake of batter fried on both sides in a pan: before 1400, in the Alphita, where the Latinate form pankakus glosses Latin lagana.^[4][2] Etymonline dates the word to about 1400,^[3] Dictionary.com to 1400–50.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From the early 17th century the pancake was the type of something thin and flat, above all in flat as a pancake (1611, in Middleton and Dekker's Roaring Girl),^[4][3] although Middle English had already said as plat a kake in the early 15th century.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as a thin pudding baked in a frying pan.^[9] The custom of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday gave the colloquial Pancake Tuesday, recorded by 1777;^[3] in the dialects of Scotland and England a pancake bell was rung about noon on that day, which was also called Pan Tuesday.^[10] In the 19th century the word was applied to other flat things: a flat piece of floating ice (1860), a flat hat or cap in the United States (1875) and an imitation leather pressed from scraps (1875).^[4][7] The verb, to squeeze flat, appears in 1879 in Meredith.^[4][3] With aviation it was used of an aircraft dropping flat in a level position, the verb from 1911 and the noun from 1912,^[4][3][7] and both soon had figurative uses.^[3] In 1937 Pancake was registered as a proprietary name for make-up in a flat cake of compressed powder, much used in the theatre.^[4]

Timeline

• 1283 – as a surname, Mark Panecak.^[4]
• before 1400 – a thin flat cake of batter fried in a pan.^[4][2]
• 1611 – flat as a pancake, the type of something thin and flat.^[4]
• 1777 – Pancake Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday.^[3]
• 1860 – a piece of pancake ice.^[4]
• 1875 – a flat hat or cap, in the United States.^[4]
• 1879 – verb, to squeeze flat.^[4][3]
• 1911 – verb, of an aircraft, to drop flat in a level position.^[4][7]
• 1912 – noun, a pancake landing.^[4]
• 1937 – make-up in a flat cake of compressed powder.^[4]
• 1973 – verb, to cover with pancake make-up.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thin flat cake of batter cooked on both sides in a pan or on a griddle, often rolled up with a sweet or savoury filling: She flipped the pancakes onto a warm plate.^[11][7][12]
2. (Scotland) A drop scone.^[11]
3. Make-up in the form of a flat cake or stick of compressed powder.^[11][4]
4. A pancake landing, in which an aircraft levels out just above the ground and drops flat onto it.^[11][4][7]
5. A flat piece of floating ice, pancake ice.^[4]

Verb

1. Of an aircraft, to make a pancake landing; also, to cause an aircraft to do so.^{[11][7][12][4]}
2. To flatten, or to fall flat with great force: The old shed was pancaked by the storm.^[7][12][4]

Word family

• pancake landing
• French pancake
• pancake ice
• potato pancake

Related words

• pan
• cake

Usage notes

In the United States pancake, hot cake, griddlecake and flapjack are used interchangeably by many speakers, whatever the cooking surface;^[8] flannel cake is mainly North Midland, and battercake South Midland and Southern.^[8] In Scotland pancake is a name for the drop scone.^[11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
11. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt