Word.ws English Dictionary

panto

/ˈpæn.təʊ/

panto is the clipping of pantomime.

panto is the clipping of pantograph.

Meaning of pantomime

Noun

pantomime (countable and uncountable, plural pantomimes)

  1. (archaic) A Classical comic actor, especially one who works mainly through gesture and mime.
    • [He] saw a pantomime perform so well that he could follow the performance from the action alone.1865, Edward Burnett Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization
  2. (Ancient-Rome, Ancient Greece) The drama in ancient Greece and Rome featuring such performers; or (later) any of various kinds of performance modelled on such work.
  3. (UK) A traditional theatrical entertainment, originally based on the commedia dell'arte, but later aimed mostly at children and involving physical comedy, topical jokes, call and response, and fairy-tale plots.
    • With the Stoke supporters jeering Ziv's every subsequent touch, the pantomime atmosphere created by the home crowd reached a crescendo when Ziv was shown a straight red shortly after the break in extraordinary circumstances.2011 October 20, Michael da Silva, “Stoke 3 - 0 Macc Tel-Aviv”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 12 Sep 2015
    Synonyms:
    panto
  4. The act of gesturing without speaking; a dumb-show, a mime.
    • A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 26”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

See all 6 meanings of pantomime

Meaning of pantograph

Noun

pantograph (plural pantographs)

  1. A mechanical linkage based on parallelograms causing two objects to move in parallel; notably as a drawing aid.
    • A pantograph can be adjusted to make either scaled or exact copies.
  2. By extension, a structure of crosswise bars linked in such a way that it can extend and compress like an accordion, such as in a pantograph mirror or a scissor lift.
  3. A pattern printed on a document to reduce the ease of photocopying.
    • I was impressed by the quality of the pantograph; I hadn't noticed it on the original, but the copies were covered in unpleasant lines.
  4. A similarly-formed conductive device, now usually Z-shaped, that collects electric current from overhead lines for trains and trams.

See all 5 meanings of pantograph

Forms of panto

pluralpantos

Words that rhyme with panto

Questions about panto

What is panto the clipping of?
Panto is the clipping of pantomime.
How do you pronounce panto?
Panto is pronounced /ˈpæn.təʊ/ (UK).

Words near panto in the dictionary

  1. pantlessness
  2. pantload
  3. pantloads
  4. pantmaker
  5. pantmakers
  6. panto
  7. panto-
  8. pantoate
  9. pantoates
  10. pantoble
  11. pantobles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: panto (page history and authors); pantomime (page history and authors); pantograph (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-panto.wav.

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