Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a man; esp. as old pot and pan, often abbr. to old pot under old adj.

1897		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Meg’s Diversion’ Sporting Times 4 Sept. n.p.: The old pot and pan wasn’t there.
1920		Age (Melbourne) 3 July n.p.: Hello, old pot and pan, how is your trouble and strife.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 270: Pot and pan, old man.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 269: I must die for the want o’ Johnny Rann, / No Little Nell shall be rung for / This Pope-o’-Romeless pot-’n-pan / My ding-dong has been sung for.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 106: When he talks of a ‘pot and pan’ he means a man.
1971		J. Jones Rhy. Cockney Sl.
1988		Tampa Trib. (FL) 10 Apr. 6G/5: If you ball and chalk down the frog and toad after a row with your pot and pan think twice befoire stepping into a pub and getting completely Brahms and Liszt.

2. a father; often as old pot and pan.

1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Dangerous Dad’ Sporting Times 3 Feb. 1/4: Do not doubt me, / I can’t give any lip to the old pot and pan, / For, as old as ’e is, ’e can out me!
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Barter’ Sporting Times 1 Feb. 1/3: I would barter my old pot and pan for less than half the money.
1917		T. Burke Twinkletoes 156: Her Dad — her old pot-and-pan — doing things like that. It wasn’t possible.
1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 347: Pot and Pan. The ‘old man’.
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 159: Blimey! worrer ole pot an ’pan I ’ad — bless yer ’eart.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 7: Old pot and pan: Father.
1938		L. Ortzen Down Donkey Row 33: The pot and pan’ll give you a bit over for yerselves.
1953		J. Franklyn Cockney 294: ‘My old man’ may refer to either a husband or a father; but my old pot and pan [...] only to the latter.
1969		S.T. Kendall Up the Frog 39: Pot ’n’ pan – Old man (father).
1976		J. Woolveridge Ain’t It Grand 5: He said when he got out he really tanned me old man’s backside! It must have been a wasted effort, my old pot and pan never changed.

3. a husband; often as old pot and pan.

1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 153: How’s yer ole pot-’n’-pan, Tutsie?
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Her Husband’s Name’ Sporting Times 22 Jan. 1/3: But she dreamt not that Winkins was her ‘pot and pan,’ / Because she only knew him as ‘Bill!’.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 7 Mar. 5/5: Lily V. has done her nut on the Pommy [...] Lookout for her old ‘Pot and Pan,’ George.
1938		P. Hansford Johnson Monument 54: I’m asking if you’ll have me for your old pot and pan.
1940		B.M. Nixon diary entry in Raiders Overhead (1980) 122: As I rode off Georgie 2 shouted after me, ‘Mind you wash your face before you kiss your old pot and pan, you dirty girl’.
1952		E. Manin Fields at Evening 68: [He] demanded how did she like her ‘old pot and pan’? She looked at him critically, straightened his bow-tie .
1971		F.J. Hardy Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 20: ‘Where’s your old pot and pan, not about?’ ‘Down at the pub.’.
1981		P. Wright Cockney Dialect and Sl. 98: Pot and pan ‘old man’, i.e. husband.
1998–2002		G.D. Smith Cockney Rhy. Sl. 🌐 Old Pot and Pan: Old man (husband).
2002		D. Shaw ‘Dead Beard’ at www.asstr.org 🌐 She’d given the peelers the good word on where her old pot and pan was stashing his stocks of bob hope.
2003		(con. 1932) W. Woodruff Beyond Nab End 11: My ‘pot and pan’ works on the river.