Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large wicker basket, especially.
  • noun One of a pair of baskets carried on the shoulders of a person or on either side of a pack animal.
  • noun A basket carried on a person's back.
  • noun A basket or pack, usually one of a pair, that fastens to the rack of a bicycle and hangs over the side of one of the wheels.
  • noun A framework of wire, bone, or other material formerly used to expand a woman's skirt at the hips.
  • noun A skirt or an overskirt puffed out at the hips.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In the inns of court, formerly, a servant who laid the cloths, set the salt-cellars, cut bread, waited on the gentlemen in term-time, blew the horn as a summons to dinner, and rang the bell; now, one of the domestics who wait in the hall of the inns at the time of dinner. Also pannier-man.
  • noun A bread-basket; a basket for provisions; hence, any wicker basket.
  • noun One of a pair of baskets slung across the back of a beast of burden to contain a load.
  • noun A basket for carrying objects on the back of a man or woman, used in mountainous countries and where the use of beasts of burden is not common.
  • noun 4. An adjunct of female dress, intended to distend the drapery of the skirt at the hips.
  • noun A part of woman's head-dress; a stiff frame, as of wicker or wire, to maintain the head-dress in place.—6. In arch., same as corbel.
  • noun A shield of twisted osiers used in the middle ages by archers, who fixed it in the ground in anupright position and stood behind it.
  • noun 8. In hydraulic engineering, a basket or wickerwork gabion filled with gravel or sand, used in the construction of dikes, or to protect embankments, etc., from the erosion of water.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A bread basket; also, a wicker basket (used commonly in pairs) for carrying fruit or other things on a horse or an ass.
  • noun (Mil. Antiq.) A shield of basket work formerly used by archers as a shelter from the enemy's missiles.
  • noun A table waiter at the Inns of Court, London.
  • noun A framework of steel or whalebone, worn by women to expand their dresses; a kind of bustle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large basket or bag fastened, usually in pairs, to the back of a bicycle or pack animal, or carried in pairs over the shoulders.
  • noun A decorative basket for the display of flowers or fruits.
  • noun historical, fashion One of a pair of hoops used to expand the volume of a woman's skirt to either side.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun set of small hoops used to add fullness over the hips
  • noun a large basket (usually one of a pair) carried by a beast of burden or on by a person
  • noun either of a pair of bags or boxes hung over the rear wheel of a vehicle (as a bicycle)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English panier, from Old French, from Latin pānārium, breadbasket, from pānis, bread; see pā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French panier, from Latin pānārium ("a bread basket"), from pānis ("bread").

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Examples

  • Would 100l of fuel in pannier mounted jerrycans get a bike from Seattle to NYC?

    Cheeseburger Gothic » Gentlemen’s Club. 2009

  • Just the name pannier should evoke enough irony and kitsch.

    Simplify: Less is Less BikeSnobNYC 2009

  • A pannier is a more rigid container than a bag or soggie, so that it incurs less risk of poor packing and shape to the load.

    3.1 Cattle harness 1995

  • The expedient of hiding a child in a pannier, which is afterwards filled up with eggs and chickens, and carried through a camp of hungry rebels, does not somehow appeal to the mind as quite the safest that could have been devised.

    Maria Edgeworth 1905

  • On each side of this his long-eared aide-de-camp, in a kind of pannier, were slung his water-jars, covered with fig-leaves to protect them from the sun.

    The Alhambra 2002

  • On each side of this his long-eared aide-de-camp, in a kind of pannier, were slung his water-jars, covered with fig-leaves to protect them from the sun.

    The Alhambra 2002

  • One pointed to a kind of pannier of birch-bark hanging from a teepee pole, whence issued a violent scratching.

    The Fur Bringers A Story of the Canadian Northwest Hulbert Footner 1911

  • A boy, armed with a spear, walks at the side of the women; and two children, seated in a kind of pannier placed on the back of an ass, ride on in front.

    Ancient Egypt George Rawlinson 1857

  • I pronounced "pannier" wrong for the longest time until I had to get new ones and the guy at the bike shop had no idea what "paneers" were.

    Popular Posts Across MetaFilter 2010

  • Also, a bike "pannier" (a single saddle bag) fell off of a bike early last Sunday as a rider traveled along Valley Road from Bloomfield Avenue, made a right onto Chestnut Street, and then made a left onto Midland Avenue.

    Baristanet 2009

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