out of the frying pan, into the fire
Move or get from an already bad situation to a worse one; end up in a worse situation when trying to escape from a bad or difficult one.
pan
UK /pæn/ US /pæn/
noun 17verb 10name 6adj 1
Definitions
name
1
Greek god of nature, often visualized as half goat and half man playing pipes. His Roman counterpart is Faunus.
2
An inner moon of the planet Saturn, notable for its equatorial ridge.
name
1
A surname.
noun
1
Ellipsis of Peter Pan.
Collocations
5ADJ.
bottom, dry, easy, educated, false, greasy, hot, meaty
The greasy pan needed soaking overnight before I could wash it properly.
VERB + PAN
don't, flame, frying, handle, let, lift, part, place
Don't let the frying pan get too hot or the oil will start smoking.
PAN + NOUN
citizens, it's, oven, teachers
The teachers panned the new curriculum after seeing the poor test results.
PREP.
after, down, from, in, in, into, off, out
She poured the hot oil into the pan before adding the chopped onions.
ADV.
then
She panned across the room and then focused on the painting above the fireplace.
Thesaurus
Synonyms
verb — express a totally negative opinion of
Antonyms
Idioms & Phrases
go down the pan
Synonym of go down the toilet: to fail; to degenerate rapidly.
The project would seriously go down the pan if Mrs. Foster weren't here to keep it on the straight and narrow.
Peter Pan syndrome
The supposed psychological phenomenon of immaturity among some men, who, like the fictional character, remain childish or childlike and fail to assume appropriate adult social roles and responsibilities.
The husband himself (called "he" to emphasize his role as Typical Male) comes across as a rather dense, naughty adolescent boy. He is clearly suffering from a terminal case of the
best thing since sliced pan
Alternative form of greatest thing since sliced bread.
down the pan
Synonym of down the toilet: wasted; irretrievable.
Example Bank
601
The notices The Gallery received, while hardly pans, were only mixed.
Wiktionary02
1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure She yanks the pan out from under me & it spills all over the bed. Then she's got
Wiktionary03
"He's a foreign-looking guy with thinnish black hair and a meaty sort of pan."
Wiktionary04
We […] witnessed the process of cleaning up and panning out, which is the last process of separating the pure gold from the fine dirt and black sand.
Wiktionary05
Matt Damon, who compared the advent of virtual money to the development of aviation and spaceflight in a critically panned but widely seen Crypto.com ad last year, did not respond to requests to weigh
Wiktionary06
Later today in Finsbury Park, the cameras would spend hours panning across 35,000 festivalgoers in search of pickpockets, drunken brawlers, and other assorted agents of petty mischief.
WiktionaryUsage Notes
i Register
In some senses, pan is marked as obsolete, slang, informal, UK. Watch for register when choosing this word.
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