paten

Etymology

The OED takes the early word as borrowed from Latin patena (“wide shallow vessel, pan”), also patina, later reinforced by Anglo-Norman paten and Old French patene,^[2] and Etymonline and Barnhart likewise give a French and a direct Latin route.^[3][4] It appears in Middle English as pateyn, patin and paten.^[5][4] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from about 1216–20, for a broad shallow dish and for the dish that holds the host.^[6] The Latin noun is from Ancient Greek πατάνη (patánē, “plate, flat dish”),^[2][3][4][7] which Klein and Barnhart take as assimilated from an earlier form related to πετάννυμι (petánnūmi, “to spread out”).^[7][4] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary trace it to Proto-Indo-European *pete- (“to spread”),^[3][8] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com call it akin to Latin patēre (“to be open”);^[5][9] the OED says only that it perhaps shares an Indo-European base with patera.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A plate for the host at the Eucharist: in late Old English, in a record of Bishop Æðelwold's gifts to Peterborough.^[2] Etymonline and Barnhart date the word to about 1300,^[3][4] Barnhart's record being pateyn in Havelok the Dane;^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the 14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In classical Latin the word meant a broad, shallow dish or pan; the use for the dish of the host is recorded from the 6th century in post-classical Latin,^[2] and English records begin with that church sense.^[2] The general sense, a shallow dish or plate, also found in Anglo-Norman, ran from about 1340 to 1883.^[2][6] Johnson (1755) glossed the word simply as a plate, "not in use", quoting Shakespeare's "patens of bright gold",^[10] which the OED treats as the first example of a thin circular plate of metal, a sense now rare.^[2] The same Latin noun later gave English patina through Italian.^[11][2]

Timeline

• late Old English – a plate for the host at the Eucharist.^[2]
• c. 1300 – the Middle English form pateyn, in Havelok the Dane.^[4]
• c. 1340 – a shallow dish or plate in general (obsolete after 1883).^[2]
• 1600 – a thin circular plate of metal, in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A plate, usually of silver or gold, that holds the bread at the Eucharist and may also cover the chalice.^[12][5][2]
2. A thin circular plate of metal, or something resembling one.^[5][2]
3. (obsolete, c. 1340–1883) A shallow dish or plate.^[2][10]

Related words

• patina
• patella
• pan
• patent
• fathom

Usage notes

Collins and Dictionary.com also list the spelling patin, and Collins patine;^[12][9] the Shorter Oxford marks patine as obsolete.^[13]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press