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Etymology and origin of the English word pant

Pronunciation

pant1 breathe hard

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1350 Nominale
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman pantiser via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek φαντασία

Etymology

The verb meaning to breathe hard is inherited from Middle English panten,[2][3][4] apparently shortened borrowed from Anglo-Norman pantiser, also panteiser and pantoiser,[5][6] and of Old French pantaisier (“to gasp, be out of breath, be in distress”).[3][2][7][8] The OED suggests that English speakers took pantiser as a stem with the suffix -ize, and notes that French made a similar new verb, panteler (“to pant”).[5] Hoad and Ayto posit an Anglo-Norman *panter in between.[7][9] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from about 1165–80, meaning to pant or gasp for breath, and also of hawks suffering from a disease of the air passages.[6] The French verb probably goes back to Vulgar Latin *pantasiō (“to be oppressed by a nightmare, struggle for breath in a nightmare”),[3][4][10][7] a borrowing of Ancient Greek φαντασιόω (phantasióō, “to form images in the mind, be subject to hallucinations”),[3][10][5] from φαντασία (phantasía, “appearance, image”),[3][10][5][8] the source of fantasy and fancy, and related to phantom.[9][10] The OED compares pantaizar (“to dream, have a nightmare”) and pantaixar (“to be out of breath with emotion”).[5] Skeat rejected a Welsh origin proposed by Diez.[11] The noun is from the verb.[5][3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To breathe hard and fast: about 1350, in the Nominale, which glosses a French phrase about a woman sighing with pantyth and sykyth.[5][2][4] Etymonline dates the verb to the mid-14th century.[3]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart and Etymonline gloss the Vulgar Latin verb as struggling for breath during a nightmare;[4][3] Ayto sums up the history as the shock that makes one gasp.[9] In English the verb was used of the heart throbbing violently, chiefly in poetry, from the 15th century,[5][2] and Johnson (1755) gave "to palpitate" as its first sense.[12] The Geneva Bible's Psalm 42 (1560) gives the first record of pant after or pant for, to gasp for air or water and figuratively to long eagerly for something;[5] Webster (1828) quotes the verse as an example of longing.[13] In 1608 Shakespeare used it transitively in King Lear for uttering words breathlessly.[5] From 1735 it was used of bellows, furnaces and engines puffing,[5] and the noun was applied to the throb of a steam engine from 1840.[5] In 19th-century shipbuilding a ship's plating was said to pant when it bulged in and out under the pressure of waves.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1350 – to breathe hard with quick, short breaths.[5][2]
  • before 1500 – of the heart, to throb or heave violently.[5][2]
  • c. 1513 – noun, a short, quick, laboured breath; a gasp, in Dunbar.[5][14] Etymonline dates the noun to about 1500.[3]
  • 1560 – pant after or pant for, to gasp for or long eagerly for, in the Geneva Bible.[5]
  • 1608 – to utter breathlessly, in Shakespeare's King Lear.[5]
  • before 1635 – to run panting.[5]
  • 1735 – of a furnace, bellows or engine, to puff loudly and regularly.[5]
  • 1840 – noun, the regular puffing of a steam engine.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To breathe quickly and with effort, as after exertion or in excitement; to gasp: The dog lay panting in the shade.[15][14][10]
  2. To run or move along while panting: She panted up the last flight of stairs.[14][5]
  3. To say something while short of breath: He panted out the news.[15][10][5]
  4. To long eagerly for something; to yearn: to pant for fame.[15][14][10]
  5. To throb or beat rapidly; to pulsate.[15][10][5]
  6. To give off loud puffs, as an engine does.[10][14][5]

Noun

  1. A short, quick, laboured breath.[15][14][5]
  2. A puffing sound, as of a steam engine.[14][5]
  3. (obsolete) A throb of the heart; a palpitation.[14][12][13]

Word family

  • pantingly

pant2 trousers

Confidence
Established
Formation
Clipping
First attested
1832
Ultimate origin
Italian Pantalone

Etymology

The word for trousers is a shortening of pantaloon,[5][10][14] or, as the Shorter Oxford takes it, a back-formation from pants,[8] which is itself short for the plural of the same word and is first recorded a little later, in 1835.[5] That word comes from French pantalon and its source Italian Pantalone, the Venetian character of comedy, named from a forename common in Venice after San Pantaleone, the city's patron saint.[5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A trouser leg: 1832, in a letter of Mrs Carmichael-Smyth; this sense is now obsolete.[5]

Semantic evolution

The singular first named one leg of a pair of trousers, and later, originally in the United States, a pair of trousers like pants.[5] Etymonline dates the colloquial singular pant to 1893,[3] and Merriam-Webster dates its use as a modifier, as in pant legs, to 1892.[14] The Shorter Oxford labels the word American except in attributive use and in compounds such as pant suit.[8]

Timeline

  • 1832 – a trouser leg (now obsolete).[5]
  • 1892 – as a modifier, of or for pants, as in pant legs.[14]
  • 1893 – a pair of trousers, in colloquial use.[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly US) A pair of trousers; pants: a navy wool pant.[5][8]
  2. As a modifier, of or for pants: a pant cuff, a pant suit.[14][8]

Word family

  • pantsuit
  • pant leg

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pant.” Etymologically, 1 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/pant. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

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