Three-Letter Words: Pan
Some of the most perplexing words on the GRE are diminutive. Who doesn’t see PAN : REVIEW and metaphorically scratch his or her head, or wonder what, exactly, a nib or a gin is on its own? Welcome to Three-Letter Words. A few of them might make you want to deploy some four-letter words.
Pan? Today’s word is pan? Yep. Dictionary.com gives no fewer than eighteen definitions of the word pan, many of them describing different types of containers. However, if you saw an Antonyms or Analogies problem and scanned the answers to discover that pan were being used as a verb, you’d want to know that the word can mean “criticize severely.”
Pan is often used, in both noun and verb form, in reference to reviews of artistic performances:
The movie was so bad, even “Stoners Monthly” panned it as a waste of time.
Her debut film, “Sisterhood of the Contagious Acne,” received far more pans than plaudits, but of course the distributors picked out the few good quotes for the DVD box.
Try a sample Antonyms problem:
PAN :
A. laud
B. deplore
C. implore
D. console
E. rue
Choose your own answer, then click “more for the solution.
To pan is to criticize severely. A good strategy for Antonyms problems is to write your own antonym before viewing the choices. You might have something like praise.
A. Laud means praise. (Note the same root as in “applaud.”) This is our answer.
B. Deplore means regret, lament. This is on the wrong side.
C. Implore means beg, beseech.
D. Console means “comfort.” You might console someone after his or her play is panned, but console is not the opposite of pan.
E. Rue means “regret.” You might rue the day you ever invested in “Sisterhood of the Contagious Acne,” but rue is not an antonym for pan.
The answer is A.