ˈfrying-ˌpan
[f. frying vbl. n.]
1. A shallow pan, usually of iron, with a long handle, in which food is fried.
| 1382 Wyclif 1 Chron. xxiii. 29 The prestis..to the fryinge panne [Vulg. ad sartaginem]. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. cxxviii. (1495) 936 Sartago the fryenge panne hath that name of the noys that is therin whan oyle brennyth therin. 1481–90 Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.) 129 Item, for a frying pane x.d. 1545 T. Raynalde Byrth Mankynde iii. iii. (1634) 167 That that remaineth, fry it together in a Frying panne with Suger. 1624 Capt. Smith Virginia iii. v. 58 For want of nets..we attempted to catch them [fish] with a frying pan. 1719 D'Urfey Pills (1872) V. 38 Frying-Pans they do use for Ladles. 1806 Culina 218 Melt a piece of butter in a frying-pan..pour in the above preparation. 1865 Livingstone Zambesi xxvii. 564 Which..resembled the noise of fifty fryingpans in active operation. |
| fig. 1602 Narcissus (1893) 643 O frieng panne of all fritters of fraud. 1616–61 B. Holyday Persius (1673) 296 This hissing frying-pan of speach. |
b. Phrase
(to jump, leap, etc.) out of the frying-pan into the fire: to escape from one evil only to fall into a greater one.
| 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 488/2 [He] featly conuayed himself out of the frying panne fayre into the fyre. 1546 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1874) 126 Leape out of the frying pan into the fyre; and change from il paine to worse. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage i. vi. (1614) 32 Like..the foolish fish that leapeth out of the frying pan into the fire. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. i. (1721) 32 Priest-craft got the Ascendant at Rome, and then Men were—out of the Frying Pan into the Fire. 1890 Guardian 1 Oct. 1507/3 If they thought they could get away from the State by disestablishment, they would find that they were jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. |
2. attrib. and
Comb., as
frying-pan maker;
frying-pan brand (
Austral.), ‘a large brand used by cattle-stealers to cover the owner's brand’ (Morris);
frying-pan plate, ? a piece of tin-plate cut out to be made into a frying-pan.
| 1686 Plot Staffordsh. ix. 335 Nine fryingpan-plates being commonly laid upon one another and claspt together by turning up 4 Labells. Ibid. 336 There are but two Master Frying-pan makers..in the whole Kingdom. 1857 F. De B. Cooper Wild Adv. Austral. 104 This person..got into some trouble..by using a ‘frying-pan brand’. |