Plural of dustpan; shallow flat-bottomed pans with a handle used to sweep dust and debris into.
Compound of 'dust' (Old English 'dust', from Germanic roots meaning fine particles) and 'pan' (Old English 'panne', from Latin 'patina' meaning broad shallow vessel). The compound emerged in the 19th century as the modern household tool was developed.
Dustpans reveal how practical language grows—people needed a word for this specific tool, so they just combined the two obvious parts. It's the same creative process that gave us 'smartphone' and 'snowplow.'
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