Flan
noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A baked tart with a sweet or savoury filling in an open-topped pastry case. Australia, UK
"The menu includes a number of excellent fish dishes such as the […] broccoli flan."
- 2 A fan of the U.S. TV series Firefly. informal, slang
"(some) Firefly flans call themselves Browncoats (Remember, the hot movie from Universal is out this September! :)"
- 3 open pastry filled with fruit or custard wordnet
- 4 A dessert of congealed custard, often topped with caramel, especially popular in Spanish-speaking countries. Belize, US
- 5 A coin die.
- 1 To splay or bevel internally, as a window-pane.
Example
More examples"In a way, in the Philippines, people already speak Spanish and English, as these languages, or really their words, are integrated or imbedded in native languages, not just Tagalog. Spanish is chocolate or coffee, whilst English is a fizzy pink lemonade soda. The Philippine society is mostly an amalgam of Malay, Chinese, and Spanish elements, with unmentioned various more minor ones. There is Philippine Creole Spanish, Chabacano or Chavacano, spoken scatteringly in the magical archipelago. The feature of the Philippines is more like the Caribbean, the crossroads of different peoples. I can categorize the people of the Philippines in several desserts: Many are like "ube halaya" or the dark mash of sweet purple yam. Some are more like "halo-halo" or ice dessert with leche flan, ube yam, kaong, nata de coco, young coconut strips, agar-agar jelly, sago, beans, fruits like jackfruit, et cetera. Some are more like "maíz con hielo" or ice dessert with corn kernels, sugar, and milk. A striking difference of Filipinos from Mainland Asia is their love of the creative purple colour, maybe because of the ube yam delicacy. In Okinawa in Japan, people call it "beniimo." They use it also in Okinawan desserts and other cooking."
Etymology
Borrowed around 1846 from French flan (“cheesecake, custard tart, flan”), or in some uses (in reference to Spanish/Latin American flans) later from Spanish flan (itself from the French), both from Old French flaon (whence also Middle English flaon, flaun (“pie; cake”)), from Late Latin fladō (“flat cake”), from Frankish *flaþō (“flat cake”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“broad, flat”); compare German Fladen. Akin to Old High German flado (“flat cake, offering cake”). Doublet of flathe. Although the -n is generally believed to derive from the Late Latin accusative form (fladonem) of fladō (“flat cake”), it might alternatively derive from an inflected form of the Frankish word (such as the Frankish accusative *flaþan, or the like). For a similar case, see garden.
English, from a slip of the tongue by actor Nathan Fillion.
Related phrases
More for "flan"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.