pant

Formspants, panting, panted

Pluralpants

1. 1
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To breathe quickly or with effort, often after exertion or from excitement.

   Runners pant heavily as they cross the finish line.

   He panted up the last flight of stairs, clutching the railing.

   Similargasp, puff, huff, wheeze, blow

   Note

   Usually intransitive, but it can also take what is breathed out as its object. In Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (1820), a spirit "was panted forth in anguish". Pant for breath is the fixed phrase for the struggle itself, as in Dryden's Virgil of 1697. Cleland's "trembling, panting, dying" (1749) shows how easily the word slides from exertion toward excitement.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A pair of pants (trousers or underpants) referred to in the singular.

   The catalog lists each pant by waist size and inseam.

   Buyers ordered the new pant in bulk for the spring season.

   Similartrouser

   Note

   A back-formation from pants, made by trimming the plural down to a singular. It lives in the clothing trade, where catalogs, buyers and designers speak of "a pant" or "the new pant" to mean one style or item. Outside that setting the singular sounds like shop talk, and ordinary speech keeps the plural: a pair of pants.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A quick breath or gasp; the rapid breathing of an animal such as a dog with its tongue out, used to cool the body.

   Between pants, the runner managed a few words.

   The hound let out a long pant in the summer heat.

   Similargasp, puff, wheeze, huff

   Note

   Breath is where this whole family of meanings starts: Middle English panten, perhaps from Old French pantoisier, "to be breathless", with a dialect cousin, pank. The plural is pants, which collides with the garment, so "between pants" reads as "between gasps" only when breathing is plainly the subject. For a dog, the pant is a way of cooling down, not only a sign of effort.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To long eagerly; to desire something earnestly.

   The whole town panted for news from the front.

   Investors pant for any sign that rates will fall.

   Similarlong, yearn, hunger, thirst, ache

   Note

   Desire borrows the image of a creature out of breath, and the verb takes a preposition: pant for or pant after. The King James Bible of 1611 fixed the second in memory with "As the hart panteth after the water brooks", while pant for is the familiar modern pattern. The phrasing is heightened and literary, and it suits yearning better than ordinary wanting.

5. 5
   nounfigurativelycountable

   An eager longing or yearning.

   There was a clear pant for recognition in his early letters.

   Her pant for the sea never faded, even far inland.

   Similarlonging, yearning, craving, hunger, thirst

6. 6
   nounbefore a noun

   Relating to pants, or belonging to the structure of a pair of pants.

   The pant hem had frayed after years of wear.

   A grease stain spread across the right pant leg.

   Similartrouser

   Note

   The form that appears whenever a part of the garment is named: pant leg, pant hem. Placed before another noun, the word drops its plural, as nouns in that position usually do. That is why pant leg sounds natural even to speakers who would never say "a pant" in the manner of the trade singular.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   To rise and fall heavily, as the chest does during labored breathing.

   Her breast panted beneath the tight bodice as she hurried on.

   Swimmers' chests pant hard as they haul themselves from the pool.

   Similarheave

8. 8
   verbintransitive

   Of the heart, to beat with abnormal force or speed; to palpitate.

   His heart panted wildly in the moments before the verdict.

   Frightened animals' hearts pant against their ribs.

   Similarpound, race, palpitate, throb, thump

9. 9
   verbintransitive

   To sigh, flutter, or languish, as with longing or weariness.

   She panted and sighed at the window, watching the road.

   Faint hearts pant and grow weak under such sorrow.

   Similarpine, languish, sigh, flutter

   Note

   Poets soften the word here: the panting is faint rather than labored, and it need not belong to a body at all. In his Pastorals (1709), Alexander Pope gives it to a breeze: "the whisp'ring Breeze / Pants on the Leaves, and dies upon the Trees." It keeps company with sigh and languish, and it belongs to elegy rather than to exertion.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    Any public drinking fountain freely available to the people of a town.

    The old pant in the market square still runs clear.

    Locals met each morning at the pant to chat and fill their pails.

    Similarfountain

    Note

    A regional word of Scotland and northeast England, and a separate word altogether. Its origin is unknown, and it has no connection with breath or with trousers. Readers from elsewhere will reach for one of those meanings first, so outside the region a first mention of the town pant needs enough context to show it is a fountain.

11. 11
    verbintransitive

    Of an iron hull or similar structure, to bulge outward and contract inward in succession.

    The plating panted with each pounding wave.

    Older steamers' hulls pant under the stress of rough water.

    Similarflex, pulsate

Showing meanings only. Show all 13