It seems to be one of those words that might have been coined from a pun or metaphor. Somewhat like the UK radio show "My Word", I'm about to hypothesize an origin. If I'm right about it, I'll be delighted.

Homeless beggars in the US (and, I imagine, elsewhere) sometimes resort to jsut sitting up against a wall holding out whatever vessel -- hat, box, cup, or pan -- might attract spare change from a stream of passers-by. This image is similar enough to a prospector holding a pan in a stream to collect gold that the metaphor stuck.

Such a phenomenon (puns begetting words) is not so uncommon; think of colorful idioms like "stick-in-the-mud", "sticky wicket", or "needle in a haystack". Single-word examples include "spineless". Can anyone come up with any single-word idioms? I can't come up with any others "off the top of my head" (hehe...there's another one)

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