Word of the Day: May 16, 2009 - skillet

skillet (skil-it) - noun

A skillet is "a frying pan."

First used in the written form 1375–1425. Skillet may come ultimately from the same source as the English word scuttle, meaning "a large container;" and Latin scutella, a diminutive form of scutra, meaning "dish, platter." This was altered in the post-classical period to scutella, which passed into Old French as escuele, meaning "small platter" emerged, which is a plausible source of English skillet.  (An alternative possibility is that it was derived from the now virtually obsolete English skeel ('bucket'), which was borrowed from a Scandinavian source related to Old Norse skjola, meaning, "bucket."