Where does “deadpan” come from?
Deadpan comes from English dead and English pan, where pan derives from English pan- (a prefix), which traces to Latin pannus meaning cloth or garment.
deadpan (English): Deliberately impassive or expressionless; Having...
Definitions
- Deliberately impassive or expressionless; Having...
Ancestry of “deadpan”, step by step
deadpan traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English PAN
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | PAN | Acronym of primary account number; Acronym of... |
| 2 | English | pantograph | A mechanical linkage based on parallelograms... |
| 3 | French | pantographe | pantograph |
| 4 | French | -graphe | -graph; -grapher |
| 5 | Latin | -graphus | graph |
| 6 | Ancient Greek | -γράφος | writer, painter |
| 7 | Ancient Greek | γράφω | to scratch, cut into; to draw, sketch, paint; to... |
| 8 | Proto-Hellenic | grəpʰō | to scratch, cut or carve into |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | gerbʰ- | to carve |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | ger- | to turn, bend, twist, wind; to tie, bind... |
via English dead
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | dead | No longer living; Devoid of life; Figuratively,... |
| 2 | English | -en | Denotes the past participle form when attached to... |
| 3 | Middle English | -en | Denotes the past participle form when attached to... |
| 4 | Old English | -en | mæġþ + API → mæġden; cocc + API → cycen, cicen;... |
| 5 | Old Norse | -inn | Used to create adjectives from nouns, meaning... |
| 6 | Proto-Norse | -īna- | — |
| 7 | Proto-Germanic | -īnaz | -en |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -iHnos | Creates adjectives of materials |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | -no- | adjectival suffix |