Saucepan

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈsɔsˌpæn/

Definitions

1. A kitchen container, usually made of metal, designed for cooking liquids or food over heat while featuring a long handle and sometimes a lid
2. This is a cooking pot characterized by a deep, round shape meant for simmering, boiling, or preparing various dishes
3. A deep, round vessel with a single long handle used for heating or cooking food on a stove

Etymology: A saucepan is about as plain as English compounds get: a "sauce" joined to a "pan", which sounds like a pot for sauces but in practice covers far more of the kitchen. The "sauce" element comes from Old French "sauce", ultimately from Latin "salsa", meaning salted or seasoned, a sense that carried into the English word for the liquid poured over food. The "pan" element is an older English word for a shallow vessel, so the compound is essentially a "sauce-pan", a small pan with a long handle used for heating sauces, milk, and small quantities of food. The word's sense has drifted from its parts. Today a saucepan is typically a deep, straight-sided pot with a single long handle and a lid, the kind used for boiling eggs or simmering vegetables, while the sauce-making part of its name has become incidental. Its name records the shape of the job rather than the range of uses.

Synonyms: pan, cooking pot, kettle, stew pot, sauté pan