Word.ws English Dictionary

panoptic

/pænˈɒptɪk/

panoptic adjective: all-seeing; comprehensive, inclusive.

Adjective

panoptic (not comparable)

  1. All-seeing; comprehensive, inclusive.
    • Divested of egotistic obsession, an ordinary human being could achieve the panoptic vision of a sage.2006, Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation, Atlantic Books, published 2007, page 340

Origin of panoptic

From pan- + optic.

Words formed from panoptic

Questions about panoptic

What does panoptic mean?
Panoptic means all-seeing; comprehensive, inclusive.
What part of speech is panoptic?
Panoptic is an adjective.
How do you pronounce panoptic?
Panoptic is pronounced /pænˈɒptɪk/.

Words near panoptic in the dictionary

  1. panoplist
  2. panoplists
  3. panoply
  4. panopsin
  5. panopsins
  6. panoptic
  7. panoptica
  8. panoptical
  9. panoptically
  10. panopticism
  11. panopticon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: panoptic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “panoptic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/panoptic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.