pancake
Americannoun
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pancakes
plural
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a thin, flat cake of batter fried on both sides on a griddle or in a frying pan; griddlecake or flapjack.
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Also called pancake landing. an airplane landing made by pancaking.
verb (used without object)
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pancakes,
present (3rd person singular)
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pancaked,
past participle, past
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pancaking
present participle
verb (used with object)
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pancakes,
present (3rd person singular)
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pancaked,
past participle, past
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pancaking
present participle
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Informal. to flatten, especially as the result of a collision or other mishap.
The car had been pancaked by the bus.
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to cause (an airplane) to pancake.
noun
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a thin flat cake made from batter and fried on both sides, often served rolled and filled with a sweet or savoury mixture
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( as modifier )
pancake mix
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a Scot name for drop scone
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a stick or flat cake of compressed make-up
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Also called: pancake landing. an aircraft landing made by levelling out a few feet from the ground and then dropping onto it
verb
Regionalisms
Pancake, hot cake, griddlecake, and flapjack, with its derived slapjack, are used interchangeably by many people, regardless of whether a pan or griddle is used for cooking, and each term is widely used throughout the U.S. Flannel cake, however, is confined chiefly to the North Midland U.S. and battercake to South Midland and Southern U.S. The following terms have limited regional use and may refer to flat cakes with different recipes or cooking methods: johnnycake, which is used in the Northeastern U.S.; corn cake in the Midland and Southern U.S.; and hoecake in the South Midland and Southern U.S.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pancakesimple
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pancakessimple
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have pancakedperfect
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has pancakedperfect
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am pancakingprogressive
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are pancakingprogressive
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is pancakingprogressive
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have been pancakingperfect progressive
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has been pancakingperfect progressive
Past
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pancakedsimple
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had pancakedperfect
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was pancakingprogressive
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were pancakingprogressive
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had been pancakingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pancake
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English; see origin at pan 1, cake
Explanation
A pancake is a breakfast dish, a flat cake that's made by pouring batter into a hot pan and frying it on both sides. Many people like to eat their pancakes with a drizzle of maple syrup. While pancakes can be savory, they're more often a sweet breakfast food in the US. Most pancakes begin as a mixture of flour, eggs, milk, and butter, are fried on a greased griddle, and are circular in shape. Pancakes have a long history, stretching as least as far back as ancient Greece, and appear in various forms throughout the world, from savory African injera to the sweet Finnish dessert pancakes known as lettu.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“You’re not serving pancake batter on a Friday or a Monday, so you have excess waste,” Reitz said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026
It is my homemade equivalent of ordering the pancake for the table.
From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2026
Neighbors hosted pancake breakfasts and spaghetti nights to raise money for lawyers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
They relied on the "pancake model," a widely used semi-analytic approach that describes how a bolide fragments while passing through an atmosphere.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 26, 2026
I’m not much in the mood for stale pretzels because I just had the double-stack pancake special at Everybody’s Favorite Diner.
From "Liar & Spy" by Rebecca Stead
I’d order pancakes to share, eggs, fresh fruit and a green juice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
At Prezzo, members receive drinks or desserts when they spend at least £25, while Bill's offers a bottle of prosecco or pancakes when qualifying meals are ordered and the booking is made in advance.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
At the dinner table, Wendy looks and acts more like one of the kids than their potential stepmother, especially when she makes Jack promise to make pancakes in the morning.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
A vendor selling savoury pancakes, who did not give his name, said two universities had been established since the facilities were built.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
I’m guessing Brooke’s father never makes her smiley-face pancakes to try to cheer her up.
From "Shine!" by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein
"One of the rescuers asked anyone trapped to whistle, and someone whistled back," he said near a pancaked building.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
Espy described the situation as “very grim,” with many high-rises leveled or pancaked in the tourist destination.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
There are pictures from Ishikawa of old wooden houses pancaked by the quake.
From BBC ● Jan. 1, 2024
"This is betrayal. Sheer betrayal," he said, adding people were still trapped under pancaked buildings in some areas.
From Reuters ● Sep. 12, 2023
Bending over with great effort, Ignatius stuck a finger into the valve of one of the tires until the hissing stopped and the tire’s bottom pancaked across the brick gutter.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
It can flatten from the savage forces it experiences as it decelerates in a process called, and I love this, pancaking.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 8, 2023
They hit again, pushing, pummeling, pancaking, claiming dominance of a field they once ruled, a moment they once owned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2022
How, eleven years after entire cities fell down, are we being treated to scenes of more Haitian church roofs collapsing, more Haitian hotels pancaking, and more voices screaming from inside the rubble?
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2021
Without air, we’d continue accelerating at 22 mph every second until pancaking into the ground.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 8, 2021
And just then a paper bag sailed from a window to my left and burst like a silent grenade, scattering garbage into the trees and pancaking to earth with a soggy, exhausted plop!
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
