pancake

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English pancake, panne cake, pankake, ponkake, equivalent to pan + cake. Perhaps adapted from Middle Low German pankôke, pannekôke, from Old Saxon *pannakōko (suggested by derivatives Old Saxon pannakōkilo and pannakōkilīn), where the compound is much older; compare Old High German phankuohho (8th century), whence Middle High German phankuoche, German Pfannkuchen (“pancake”); further Saterland Frisian Ponkouke, Ponkuuke (“pancake”), West Frisian pankoek (“pancake”), Dutch pannenkoek (“pancake”), German Low German Pannkook (“pancake”). The juggling sense is by analogy with a pancake being tossed in a pan.

noun

1. A thin batter cake fried in a pan or on a griddle in oil or butter; in particular:
   1. In England, an often unleavened cake similar to a crepe.
   2. In the US (and e.g. Scotland), a leavened, thicker, fluffier cake.
2. (theater) A kind of makeup, consisting of a thick layer of a compressed powder.
3. (juggling) A type of throw, usually with a ring where the prop is thrown in such a way that it rotates round an axis of the diameter of the prop.
   have been working on pancake throws with rings for the past few months and I have been trying to make the throws perfectly spun and as consistent as possible. 2004, Beinn Muir&#32;<bm260@nospam4me.cam.ac.uk>, “Ring juggling: pancake throws”, in rec.juggling (Usenet)
4. Anything very thin and flat.
   pancake lens
   Most of the electrons would pass through the hadron pancake with no interaction, but a few would collide […] 2004, William H. Cropper, Great Physicists
5. Composite leather made of scraps, glue and board, by extension of (4), material originally used for insoles, but later used also for heels and even soles.
   &hellip in the poorer grades the heel is made of scrap leather and leather board or pulp, finished with a solid leather top lift. The composite material, called pancake, is made by an operative, usually a girl, called a pancake-maker; it is used sometimes for soles as well as heels. 1903, Davis Rich Dewey, Twelfth Census of the United States: Special report: Employees and Wages, page 1200
6. (film, slang) A box on which an actor stands to make them appear taller.
7. (volleyball) A defensive play in which the ball bounces off the top of a hand that has been pressed flat against the floor.

verb

1. (intransitive) To make a pancake landing.
2. (construction, demolition) To collapse one floor after another.
3. (transitive) To flatten violently.
   Poor old Sleepy suffered from an on-duty head injury he'd got by chasing a Corvette on a police motorcycle, ending up like a pancaked roadkill with half his scalp flapping in the backwash of freeway commuters[…] 2011, Joseph Wambaugh, Floaters