noun
pancake
PAN-kayk
noun
1
A thin, flat cake made from batter and cooked in a pan, often eaten for breakfast or dessert.
"She stacked three pancakes and drizzled them with maple syrup."
"We had pancakes with bacon on Sunday morning."
verb
1
To flatten completely, especially in a crash or collapse.
"The car pancaked after hitting the guardrail at high speed."
"The upper floors pancaked onto the ones below during the collapse."
How to Use Pancake
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishThe breakfast food everyone knows, or (as a verb) something collapsing or flattening completely, like a building or a badly landed aircraft.
Common pairings
stack of pancakes
pancake landing
pancake collapse
Word Forms
pancaked past tense, pancakes plural, pancakes singular
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Etymology
A straightforward compound of "pan" and "cake," describing a cake cooked flat in a frying pan — in use since at least the 15th century.