pannikin

English

Etymology

From pan +‎ -kin.

Noun

pannikin (plural pannikins)

1. A durable cup or other vessel used for drinking made of metal and coated in enamel.
   • 1852, Ellen Clacy (diarist), cited in Susan Lawrence, "Households on Australian goldfields" in Penelope M. Allison (ed.), The Archaeology of Household Activities, London: Routledge, 1999,

     ‘a block of wood forms a table, and this is the only furniture; many dispense with that. The bedding, which is laid on the ground, serves to sit upon. Tin plates and pannikins… compose the tea service.’

   • 1876, Earl of Dunraven, The Great Divide: Travels in the Upper Yellowstone in the Summer of 1874‎^[1], London: Chatto and Windus, page 265:

     Scarcely had we got things fixed and supper under weigh, when a yell from Boteler, 'He's going to spout!' caused us to drop teapot and pannikin, and tumble out of the tent in half no time.

   • 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days:

     A stout Burmese woman, wife of a constable, was kneeling outside the cage ladling rice and watery dahl into tin pannikins.

   • 1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC:

     It is all bound up in my mind with the winter cold, the ragged uniforms of militiamen, the oval Spanish faces, the morse-like tapping of machine-guns, the smells of urine and rotting bread, the tinny taste of bean-stews wolfed hurriedly out of unclean pannikins.

   • 1950, Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated by A.H. Gross, The Family Moskat, New York: Knopf, Part V, Chapter 1, p. 258:

     The peasants and their wives came to the doors of their cottages. Some brought out pannikins of water to the fleeing Jews; others laughed and jeered.

   • 2007, Toyin Falola, Amanda Warnock, editors, Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, page 131:

     Water was seriously rationed, and each slave was given half a pint of water served in a pannikin.

2. The contents of such a vessel.
   • 1903, Ernest W. Hornung, chapter 18, in Denis Dent‎^[2], New York: Frederck A. Stokes, page 183:

     “ […] Put the billy on the fire, Jimmy, and we’ll drink him a good voyage in half a pannikin of tea before we turn in.”

Derived terms

• pannikin boss
• pannikinful

Translations

a cup or other vessel for drinking

• Bulgarian: канче n (kanče)
• French: godet (fr) m
• Italian: boccale (it) m
• Maori: panikena
• Russian: кру́жка (ru) f (krúžka)

the contents of such a vessel

• French: godet (fr) m

See also

• cup
• mug

References

• The Oxford English Dictionary