ˈwarming-pan
1. A long-handled covered pan of metal (usually of brass) to contain live coals, etc., formerly in common use for warming beds.
| 1573 Baret Alv. W 64 A warmyng pan, thermoclinium. c 1590 Marlowe Jew of Malta 1745 A fellow..with..a Dagger with a hilt like a warming-pan. 1669 Pepys Diary 1 Jan., Presented from Captain Beckford with a noble silver warming-pan, which I am doubtful whether to take or no. 1710 D. Hilman Tusser Rediv. May (1744) 62 The tinkling after them with a Warming-Pan, Frying-Pan, or Kettle, is of good Use to let the Neighbours know you have a Swarm [of Bees] in the Air. 1840 Dickens Old C. Shop xiv, A nosegay resembling in shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan with the handle cut short off. |
| fig. 1626 Breton Fantasticks (Grosart) 9/2, I thus conclude, I hold it [August] the worlds welfare, and the earths Warming-pan. 1762 Gentl. Mag. XXXII. 137/2 For wedlock is the warming-pan, That best can warm the bed. |
2. Hist. With allusion to the story that James II's son, afterwards called the Old Pretender, was a supposititious child introduced into the Queen's bed in a warming-pan. Also
attrib.| 1689 Full Answ. Depos. Birth Pr. Wales 13 Do you think it [the child] was conveyed there in a Warming-pan, or otherwise? 1689 Muses Farew. Popery 141 A Warming pan Plot, worse than Celliers Meal-Tub. 1716 Collect. State Songs, Poems, etc. 64 Let those Rebels, if they can, Make us forget the Warming Pan, Which first convey'd that pretty Man Into the Chamber Royal. 1818 Scott Rob Roy ix, Our immortal deliverer from papists and pretenders, and wooden shoes and warming pans. |
3. slang. a. A large old-fashioned watch.
Cf. turnip n. 3 b.
b. A female bed-fellow.
Scotch warming-pan: a chambermaid who lay in the bed a while to warm it for the intending occupant.
| 1668 Davenant Man's the Master ii. 25 None but a cold Bed-fellow would have two Warming-Pans. 1678 Ray Prov. (ed. 2) 83 A Scotch warming-pan, i.e. a wench. The story is well known of the Gentleman travelling in Scotland, who desiring to have his bed warmed, the servant-maid doffs her clothes and lays her self down in it for a while. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Warming-pan, an old fashion'd large Watch. A Scotch Warming-pan, a She-bed-fellow. |
c. A person who temporarily holds a place or employment until the intended occupant is ready to take it.
| 1846 Eclectic Rev. June 662 A locum tenens (ecclesiasticè, a warming-pan) was wanted for a Yorkshire living. 1847 Disraeli Tancred ii. i, Hungerford is not a warming-pan;..he never was originally; and if he had been, he has been member for the county too long to be so considered now. 1883 D. C. Murray Hearts xiv. (1885) 117, I only serve the place of what in Parliament is called a warming-pan. |
| attrib. 1875 Daily News 2 June 2/2 The Act..was simply employed for conserving livings for the use of the children of the patron, and was popularly known as the ‘warming-pan’ Act. |