n. [ Written also pemican. ] 1. Among the North American Indians, meat cut in thin slices, divested of fat, and dried in the sun. [ 1913 Webster ]

Then on pemican they feasted. Longfellow. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Meat, without the fat, cut in thin slices, dried in the sun, pounded, then mixed with melted fat and sometimes dried fruit, and compressed into cakes or in bags. It contains much nutriment in small compass, and is of great use in long voyages of exploration. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A treatise of much thought in little compass. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]