paan
Pluralpaans
- 1A psychoactive preparation of betel leaf combined with areca nut and, sometimes, cured tobacco, chewed recreationally across Asia and often served folded inside the leaf.
A bit like an after-dinner mint in its social role (passed around to close a meal) except it is chewed rather than sucked.
She bought a paan from the roadside vendor and tucked it into her cheek as they walked.
Guests at the wedding were offered sweet paan to round off the feast.
Note
English took this word from Hindi pān, and it may be a distant doublet of fern through a shared Proto-Indo-European ancestor. E. M. Forster's A Passage to India (1924) spells it pan and treats it as a habit, a mass noun: "to take pan." Today a shop sells "juicy paans" one at a time. Watch the misnomer: "betel nut" is really areca, and only the wrapping leaf is betel.
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Origin
Borrowed from Hindi पान (pān), and possibly a doublet of "fern" via Proto-Indo-European *pornóm.