- to photograph or televise while rotating a camera on its vertical or horizontal axis in order to keep a moving person or object in view or allow the film to record a panorama: to pan from one end of the playing field to the other during the opening of the football game.
- (of a camera) to be moved or manipulated in such a manner: The cameras panned occasionally during the scene.
- to move (a camera) in such a manner: to pan the camera across the scene.
- to photograph or televise (a scene, moving character, etc.) by panning the camera.
- the act of panning a camera.
- Also called panning shot. the filmed shot resulting from this.
Origin of pan3
Examples from the Web for panning
While panning for gold, he made himself a large hat from the hides he had collected on his trip.My Love Letter to the Stetson
December 24, 2014
“Costner suggests Dan Quayle with a sword,” added Mike Clark of USA Today, panning Robin Hood.Are We in the Midst of a Kevin Costner Comeback?
January 28, 2014
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Downey's character is on to something when it comes to panning for Oscar gold.10 Ways to Win an Oscar
February 28, 2010
Always we talked of the result of the day's panning and the chances of to-morrow.The Trail of '98
Robert W. Service
"This is panning out first rate," I said, with less emotion.How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion
George W. Peck
Nevertheless, every assay or panning has a value as indicating the presence of gold.Through South Africa
Henry M. Stanley
Terry went at his panning with enthusiasm, bound to make a showing.The Pike's Peak Rush
Edwin L. Sabin
The bosses had only remained until the gold was panning out well, then they sent for experts to come and value the entire mine.The Blue Birds' Winter Nest
Lillian Elizabeth Roy
- Greek myth the god of fields, woods, shepherds, and flocks, represented as a man with a goat's legs, horns, and earsRelated adjectives: Pandean, Panic
- a wide metal vessel used in cooking
- (in combination)saucepan
- Also called: panful the amount such a vessel will hold
- any of various similar vessels used esp in industry, as for boiling liquids
- a dish used by prospectors, esp gold prospectors, for separating a valuable mineral from the gravel or earth containing it by washing and agitating
- either of the two dishlike receptacles on a balance
- Also called: lavatory pan British the bowl of a lavatory
- a natural or artificial depression in the ground where salt can be obtained by the evaporation of brine
- a natural depression containing water or mud
- Caribbean the indented top from an oil drum used as the treble drum in a steel band
- See hardpan, brainpan
- a small ice floe
- a slang word for face (def. 1a)
- a small cavity containing priming powder in the locks of old guns
- a hard substratum of soil
- short for pan loaf
- (when tr, often foll by off or out) to wash (gravel) in a pan to separate particles of (valuable minerals) from it
- (intr often foll by out) (of gravel) to yield valuable minerals by this process
- (tr) informal to criticize harshlythe critics panned his new play
- to move (a film camera) or (of a film camera) to be moved so as to follow a moving object or obtain a panoramic effect
- the act of panning
- (as modifier)a pan shot
- the leaf of the betel tree
- a preparation of this leaf which is chewed, together with betel nuts and lime, in India and the East Indies
Word Origin and History for panning
Old English panne, earlier ponne (Mercian) "pan," from West Germanic *panna "pan" (cf. Old Norse panna, Old Frisian panne, Middle Dutch panne, Dutch pan, Old Low German panna, Old High German phanna, German pfanne), probably an early borrowing (4c. or 5c.) from Vulgar Latin *patna, from Latin patina "shallow pan, dish, stewpan," from Greek patane "plate, dish," from PIE *pet-ano-, from root *pete- "to spread" (see pace (n.)). Irish panna probably is from English, and Lithuanian pana is from German.
Used of pan-shaped parts of mechanical apparatus from c.1590; hence flash in the pan, a figurative use from early firearms, where a pan held the priming (and the gunpowder might "flash," but no shot ensue). To go out of the (frying) pan into the fire is first found in Spenser (1596).
"follow with a camera," 1913 shortening of panoramic in panoramic camera (1878). Meaning "to swing from one object to another in a scene" is from 1931. Related: Panned; panning.
Arcadian shepherd god with upper body of a man and horns and lower part like a goat, late 14c., a god of the woods and fields, from Latin, from Greek Pan. Klein says perhaps cognate with Sanskrit pusan, a Vedic god, guardian and multiplier of cattle and other human possessions, literally "nourisher." Similarity to pan "all" (see pan-) led to his being regarded as a personification of nature. Pan-pipe, upon which he supposedly played, is attested from 1820.
"to wash gravel or sand in a pan in search of gold," 1839, from pan (n.); thus to pan out "turn out, succeed" (1868) is a figurative use of this (literal sense from 1849). The meaning "criticize severely" is from 1911, probably from the notion in contemporary slang expressions such as on the pan "under reprimand or criticism" (1923). Related: Panned; panning.
The Greek god of flocks, forests, meadows, and shepherds. He had the horns and feet of a goat. Pan frolicked about the landscape, playing delightful tunes.