pannum

• panem, panum, pannam, pennam

Possibly from Italian pane (“bread”) or directly from Latin pānem, the accusative of pānis (“bread, loaf”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to feed, to graze”).

pannum (uncountable)

1. (obsolete, Britain, thieves' cant) Bread; food.
   • 1641–42, Brome, Richard, A Joviall Crew, or, The Merry Beggars‎, Act 2, published 1652:

     Here's Pannum and Lap, and good Poplars of Yarrum, / To fill up the Crib, and to comfort the Quarron.

   • 1844, Selby, Charles, London by Night, Act 1, Scene 2:

     As far as injun, pannum, and cheese, and a drop of heavy goes, you are perfectly welcome.

   • c. 1864, Stevens, Alfred Peck, “The Chickaleary Cove”, in Farmer, John Stephen, editor, Musa Pedestris‎, published 1896, page 161:

     I have a rorty gal, also a knowing pal, / And merrily together we jog on, / I doesn't care a flatch, as long as I've a tach, / Some pannum for my chest, and a tog on.

• pannum-bound (“cut of someone's prison allowance”), pannum-fence (“street pastry cook”), pannum-struck (“starving”)

• “pannum” in Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, volume II (L–Z), Edinburgh: The Ballantyne Press, 1889–1890, page 114.
• Farmer, John Stephen (1902) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 5, page 134

pannum

1. accusative singular of pannus

• pannum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)