/ˈpænəl/
[noun] A flat section of a surface, door, or wall that is separate from the parts around it, or a group of people chosen to discuss, judge, or decide something together.
A 'panel' was originally a small piece of cloth sewn onto clothing — nothing to do with wood, walls, or expert judges.
The word 'panel' arrives in English in the 14th century from Old French 'panel', meaning a piece of cloth or a small section of fabric. This Old French word came from Vulgar Latin 'pannellus', a diminutive form of Latin 'pannus', which meant a cloth, rag, or piece of fabric. The suffix '-ellus' in Latin was used to indicate something small or a smaller portion of something larger — so 'pannellus' essentially meant 'a little piece of cloth'. That humble textile origin is easy to forget when we look at the word today.
In its earliest English uses, 'panel' referred specifically to a piece of parchment or a small section of a legal document — particularly the slip of parchment on which a sheriff would write the names of jurors summoned to serve in a court case. This legal usage is the direct ancestor of our modern phrase 'panel of jurors' or simply a 'jury panel'. The connection between a written list and the people on that list was a natural one — the document became the group it described.
From the legal world, the word spread outward. By the 15th and 16th centuries, 'panel' had taken on a broader architectural meaning, referring to a distinct, framed section within a larger surface — a piece of wood set into a door, a section of painted wall, or a compartment within a ceiling. The key idea was always the same: a panel is a defined, bounded portion set within or beside something larger. This sense grew naturally from the original textile meaning, since a sewn piece of cloth is similarly a distinct section within a larger garment.
The word continued to expand its meanings over the centuries. In the world of art, a 'panel painting' referred to a picture painted directly onto a wooden board rather than onto canvas — a technique widely used before the Renaissance made canvas popular. In the 20th century, 'panel' took on new life in the context of broadcasting and public discussion, where a 'panel' came to mean a group of selected experts or participants gathered to discuss a topic — a meaning that revived the old legal sense of a chosen, assembled group.
Modern English uses 'panel' in an astonishing variety of contexts: solar panels, control panels, comic panels, discussion panels, and panel vans. Yet every single one of these carries the same ancient DNA — the idea of a defined section, a bounded piece, something set apart from what surrounds it. From a scrap of cloth sewn onto a medieval garment to the solar cells powering a 21st-century home, the word has stretched across the centuries without ever truly losing its original shape.