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Etymology and origin of the French word pan

pan1 piece of cloth, section

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1100 Chanson de Roland
Inherited from
Latin pannus
Ultimate origin
Latin pannus
Etymology tree of pan1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pannus
French pan
Italian panno
Spanish paño
From the same root · pan1
Latin pannōsus ← pannus

Pronunciation

Forms

pan m (plural pans)[1]

Etymology

The word for a piece of cloth or a section is inherited from Latin pannus (“piece of cloth, strip of cloth”).[2][3][4][5][6] Rey notes that the Latin word, often with the pejorative sense “rag”, is very old but absent from classical prose, and has no clear correspondent in other languages;[3] Littré compared Ancient Greek πῆνος (pênos).[7] It is a doublet of pagne.[1][4]

Cognate with Occitan pan, Spanish paño, Portuguese pano and Italian panno.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Chanson de Roland (about 1100) it names the hanging skirt of a hauberk: De son haubert li a romput les pans “he broke the skirts of his hauberk”; the same poem already uses it for a piece of territory.[2][7][3]

Semantic evolution

From the flapping part of a garment, the word passed early to any section of a larger surface: a piece of land (about 1100), part of a wall (about 1150) and one face of a structure such as a tent (about 1170).[2][3] By 1370 it also named a kind of net.[5] The abstract sense “part, element” appears about 1200 and became common in the 19th century.[2][3]

On its own the word is little used today, but it stays current in phrases such as pan de chemise and pan de mur, and in building terms such as pan de bois (1539), a timber framework filled with masonry, and pan coupé (1676), a wall cut across the corner.[3][2] Amyot used it in 1572 for a face of an object, and in 1874 it is recorded as a butcher's term.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 1100 – The Chanson de Roland uses it for the skirt of a hauberk and for a part of a territory.[2]
  • c. 1150 – The Roman de Thèbes uses it for part of a wall.[2]
  • c. 1170 – Marie de France uses it for a face of a tent in Lanval.[2]
  • c. 1200 – First figurative use, “part, element”, in the Mort Garin.[2]
  • 1370 – Recorded as a kind of net.[5]
  • 1539 – Pan de bois appears in the Nouveau Coutumier général.[2][8]
  • 1572 – Amyot uses it for a face of an object.[8]
  • 1676 – Félibien records pan coupé.[2][8]
  • 1874 – A butcher's sense is recorded in the Journal officiel.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A large piece of cloth; the hanging or flapping part of a garment, such as a coat's skirt or a shirt's tail: en pans de chemise “in shirt-tails”.[9][10][2]
  2. Pan de mur: a section of a wall, larger or smaller.[9][10][11]
  3. (building) A wall framework of timber (pan de bois) or iron (pan de fer) whose gaps are filled with masonry.[11][8]
  4. A face or side of an object or a polyhedral construction, as of a nut or a tower.[9][11]
  5. Pan coupé: a surface set obliquely in place of the corner where two walls meet.[9][10]
  6. (literary) Any surface recalling the face of a building, as on a mountainside.[11][8]
  7. (figurative) A large part of a whole: un pan entier de son passé.[10][11][8]
  8. (butchery) A part of beef or veal containing the choicest cuts.[8]
  9. (hunting, dated) A net stretched around a wood.[7][5]

Word family

  • dépenaillé

pan2 bang!

Confidence
Established
Formation
Onomatopoeia
First attested
1731 Fagan, La Fausse ridicule

Pronunciation

Forms

pan (interjection, often repeated: pan pan, pan pan pan)[2][9]

Etymology

The interjection is an onomatopoeia imitating a sharp noise.[2][9][1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in 1731, in Fagan's comedy La Fausse ridicule, for a sharp noise.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Besides imitating a shot, a knock or a slap, it came to mark the suddenness of an idea or of an unexpected, quick action, as in Colette (1900) and Montherlant (1924).[2] Reduplicated, it is a children's word for a spanking.[12][9]

Timeline

  • 1731 – First record, in Fagan's La Fausse ridicule.[2]
  • 1872 – Daudet's Tartarin de Tarascon uses pan ! pan ! for gunshots.[2]
  • 1900 – Colette uses it to mark something sudden and unexpected.[2]

Meanings

Interjection

  1. Imitates a sharp noise: a shot, a blow, a slap or a knock: pan ! pan ! les coups de feu claquèrent.[9][10][2]
  2. Marks the suddenness of an idea or the speed of an unexpected action.[2]
  3. (children's language) Pan pan, also panpan cucul: a spanking.[12][9]

Usage notes

A third word pan “span”, an old measure of length of about 20 to 25 centimetres used in the south of France, is the Old French espan with its first syllable dropped (about 1200), from Frankish *spanna.[2][3][4] It went out of use in French and came back in the south-east as a borrowing from Provençal pan, of the same origin;[3] the Grand Robert dates it to the 19th century.[4] In the south-west un pan de nez means “a long nose” (the mocking gesture).[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  5. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 7, 555b
  7. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  10. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
  11. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
  12. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pan.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/pan. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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