saucepan

Etymology

It is formed from English sauce + pan,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} and was also written “sauce-pan”.^[3] The OED records a form “saucepand”, with an excrescent d.^[2] Sauce is from Old French sauce, from Latin salsa (“salted things”), from salsus (“salted”), ultimately from sāl (“salt”);^[3] pan is from Old English panne.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small metal pan or skillet with a long handle, used especially for cooking and serving sauces: 1639, in I. W.'s translation of P. Guybert's Charitable Physitian.^[2][8] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date the word to the 1680s and 1686.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

As the name says, the pan was at first one for making sauces, and the word later came into more general use.^[3][5] Johnson (1755) still defined it as a small skillet with a long handle, in which sauce or small things are boiled, quoting Swift.^[6] The modern saucepan is a deep, usually round metal pan with a lid and a long side handle, used for boiling or stewing.^[2][5][4] In the slang of 1699, your saucepan runs over was said of a bold or impudent person, playing on saucy.^[2] The English Dialect Dictionary records regional uses: in West Yorkshire a small vessel for melted butter, in Lincolnshire the vertebrae of fish, named after their dish-like hollows, and in Hampshire saucepan with a broken handle as a name for the Pleiades; in Ireland and Australia to knock saucepans out of someone was to give them a bad time.^[9] Green's Dictionary of Slang records saucepan for a manservant in 1822 and, in racecourse slang, for five shillings in 1921.^[10]

Timeline

• 1639 – a small long-handled pan for cooking and serving sauces.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1680s, and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1686.^[3][4]
• 1699 – your saucepan runs over, said of an impudent person (obsolete).^[2]
• 1822 – slang, a manservant.^[10]
• 1921 – racecourse slang, five shillings.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deep, usually round metal pan with a long handle and often a lid, used for boiling or stewing food on a stove: She warmed the soup in a small saucepan.^[11][4][5]

Related words

• sauce
• pan
• saucepot
• saucy

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ 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.
7. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ 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)
10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins