frying pan

a shallow, long-handled pan in which food is fried.

out of the frying pan into the fire, free of one predicament but immediately in a worse one.

Also fry-pan, fry·pan

[frahy-pan] /ˈfraɪˌpæn/.

Also called skillet.

Origin of frying pan

1350–1400; Middle English fryinge panne

fry cook, fry, frying, frybread, frye, fryer, frying pan, fräulein, frère, fréchet, fréchette, frémont

Hard to know its scale (I like to imagine it frying-pan size) but its asymmetries speak to its origins.

A Carpet for Mr. Burns |Blake Gopnik |July 8, 2013 |DAILY BEAST
Did you ever eat pork and beans heated in a frying-pan on a camp-fire for breakfast?

Letters of a Woman Homesteader |Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Put into a frying-pan, and stir steadily over the fire till it becomes a deep dark brown in color.

The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking |Helen Campbell
Hereafter, whenever I see a frying-pan I'll think of you and wish you were in it, being fried to a turn.

Pee-wee Harris on the Trail |Percy Keese Fitzhugh

Most luscious, too, were the contents of the gunners' frying-pan!

'Neath Verdun, August-October, 1914 |Maurice Genevoix
Put the lard and butter into a frying-pan, and when very hot put in the batter by small spoonfuls.

The Myrtle Reed Cook Book |Myrtle Reed

frying pan

a long-handled shallow pan used for frying

out of the frying pan into the fire from a bad situation to a worse one