Other forms: pandering, pandered, panders
To pander is to give people exactly what they want, however low. Pander to the crowd, pandering to prejudice, refuse to pander.
It is always a criticism, and it needs a to — you pander to somebody or to their appetites. The word comes from a character: Pandarus, who arranges the lovers' meetings in the story of Troilus and Criseyde. Its older noun sense was a go-between in an affair.
1verbpanderTo give people exactly what they want, however low.
“The newspaper panders to its readers' fears with shocking headlines every day.”
pander is an indulging.
From Pandarus, the go-between in the story of Troilus and Criseyde, through Chaucer's Pandare.
Middle English
pandare
English, today
pander
From Middle English pandare, from Chaucer’s character Pandare (in Troilus and Criseyde; see also Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida), from Italian Pandaro (found in Boccaccio), from Latin Pandarus (found in Greek mythology), from Ancient Greek Πάνδαρος.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA