panhandle

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈpænˌhæn.dəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pan‧han‧dle

From pan +‎ handle.

panhandle (plural panhandles)

1. The handle of a pan.
2. (cartography, US) A area within a nation or subnational division that appears to sticks out or projects when viewed on a map; an especially elongated salient.
3. (aviation) The handle that activates an ejector seat.
   • 2007, Roger Brooks, Handley Page Victor, volume 2:

     The Captain Keith Handscomb was the occupant of that ejector seat and the only survivor; his narrow escape was by just being able to reach the seat panhandle with his third and fourth fingers of his left hand.

• (cartography): salient

Probable back-formation from panhandler.

panhandle (third-person singular simple present panhandles, present participle panhandling, simple past and past participle panhandled)

1. (US) To beg for money, especially with a container in hand for receiving loose change, especially on the street, and particularly, as a bum.
   • 2014 May 30, Will Butler, “The Mark of Cane”, in The New York Times Magazine‎:

     I had a white cane, but I never used it. Once, alone and lost in downtown Washington, I unfolded it, immediately sweating as I felt hundreds of eyes shift onto me. A man who was panhandling grabbed me and showed me the way home.