panhead

1 8.3

A screw with a rounded flat top or a Harley motorcycle engine made from 1948 to 1965

noun
/ˈpænˌhɛd/

Specialized

: tornillo de cabeza plana

Panhead!

Examples

My favorite's a '48 Panhead.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
You're a couple of panheads buying a machine gun out of a trunk.

Street Kings (2008)
- Hey, your Panhead is over here.

Wild Hogs (2007)
The red one, the Panhead.

Wild Hogs (2007)
Hey, who owns that '48 Panhead outside?

Wild Hogs (2007)
Congratulations, panhead!

Blog text (12)
This is Joker's Panhead.

Wild Hogs (2007)
That's a Panhead.

Wild Hogs (2007)
After restoring it, he proudly rides his Panhead to every motorcycle show.
The classic Panhead engine is known for its distinctive shape and history in Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Surface Forms

panhead singular

panheads plural

Morphology

panhead = pan + head (semi-transparent) = pan + head

The compound 'pan' + 'head' transparently names a head shaped like a shallow pan for the screw sense, but the motorcycle-engine sense is a specialized/metonymic extension that cannot be derived by a typical learner.

Etymology

The word panhead comes from the words pan and head: a panhead screw has a flat, rounded top like a small 'frying pan', and the Harley-Davidson engines called panhead got their name because their top covers look like pans. So the name helps you remember it is something with a pan-like 'top'.