pant
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: pănt
ipa: /pænt/
rhymes: -ænt
Forms: form: pants
form: panting
form: panted
form: panted
Etymology: From Middle English panten, whence also English dialectal pank.
Possibly from Old French pantoyer, a byform or of Old French pantoisier (“to be breathless”) (compare modern French panteler (“to gasp for breath”)), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Vulgar Latin *pantasiō (“struggling for breath when having a nightmare”), from Ancient Greek φαντασιόω (phantasióō, “I am subject to hallucinations”), from φαντασία (phantasía, “appearance, image, fantasy”).
Senses: examples: text: Pluto pants for breath from out his cell.
ref: 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: There is a cavern where my spirit / Was panted forth in anguish.
ref: 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound:
text: Charles had just slipp'd the bolt of the door, and running, caught me in his arms, and lifting me from the ground, with his lips glew'd to mine, bore me, trembling, panting, dying, with soft fears and tender wishes, to the bed
ref: 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:
english: Fanny Hill
translation: Fanny Hill
glosses: To breathe quickly or in a labored manner, as after exertion or from eagerness or excitement; to respire with heaving of the breast; to gasp.
examples: text: As the hart panteth after the water brooks.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 42:1:
ref: 1733–1737, Alexander Pope, [Imitations of Horace], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley [et al.]:
glosses: To long eagerly; to desire earnestly.
examples: text: Then shall our hearts pant thee.
ref: 1633, George Herbert, Love:
glosses: To long for (something); to be eager for (something).
examples: text: Yet might her piteous heart be seen to pant and quake
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
glosses: Of the heart, to beat with unnatural violence or rapidity; to palpitate.
examples: text: [T]he whiſp'ring Breeze / Pants on the Leaves, and dies upon the Trees.
ref: 1709 May, Alexander Pope, “Pastorals. The Fourth Pastoral, or Daphne. […]”, in Poetical Miscellanies: The Sixth Part. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 750:
glosses: To sigh; to flutter; to languish.
glosses: To heave, as the breast.
glosses: To bulge and shrink successively, of iron hulls, etc.
Synonyms: sense: breathe quickly or in a labored manner
word: gasp
sense: long for
word: crave
sense: long for
word: desire
sense: long for
word: long for
sense: long for
word: pine for
sense: long eagerly
word: crave
sense: long eagerly
word: desire
sense: long eagerly
word: long
sense: long eagerly
word: pine
sense: of the heart, to beat with unnatural violence
word: palpitate
sense: of the heart, to beat with unnatural violence
word: pound
sense: of the heart, to beat with unnatural violence
word: throb