Etymologically
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pancake

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈpæn.keɪk/[1]

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

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