PANTHER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does panther mean? 

• PANTHER (noun)
  The noun PANTHER has 3 senses:

1. a large spotted feline of tropical America similar to the leopard; in some classifications considered a member of the genus Felis

2. a leopard in the black color phase

3. large American feline resembling a lion

  Familiarity information: PANTHER used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PANTHER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A large spotted feline of tropical America similar to the leopard; in some classifications considered a member of the genus Felis

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

Felis onca; jaguar; panther; Panthera onca

Hypernyms ("panther" is a kind of...):

big cat; cat (any of several large cats typically able to roar and living in the wild)

Holonyms ("panther" is a member of...):

genus Panthera; Panthera (lions; leopards; snow leopards; jaguars; tigers; cheetahs; saber-toothed tigers)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A leopard in the black color phase

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("panther" is a kind of...):

leopard; Panthera pardus (large feline of African and Asian forests usually having a tawny coat with black spots)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Large American feline resembling a lion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

catamount; cougar; Felis concolor; mountain lion; painter; panther; puma

Hypernyms ("panther" is a kind of...):

wildcat (any small or medium-sized cat resembling the domestic cat and living in the wild)

Holonyms ("panther" is a member of...):

Felis; genus Felis (type genus of the Felidae: true cats and most wildcats)

 Context examples 

They were swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, as active and wiry as panthers.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He may not have expected his invitation to be so promptly answered; but in an instant, with a panther spring, the west-countryman was on him.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You are a young panther, a lion cub. Well, well, it is you who must pay for that strength.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Quick as a panther, Alleyne sprang in with a thrust, but Tranter, who was as active as he was strong, had already recovered himself and turned it aside with a movement of his heavy blade.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There is a patience of the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself—that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the wounded bull mad with helpless rage.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

He was certainly a splendidly built young athlete, and one could not have wished to look upon a finer sight as his white skin, sleek and luminous as a panther’s, gleamed in the light of the morning sun, with a beautiful liquid rippling of muscles at every movement.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The landlord was hesitating whether to carry this message or no, when the door of the inner room was flung open, and the stranger bounded out like a panther from its den, his hair bristling and his deformed face convulsed with anger.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There were, it is true, no finer or braver men in the room than Jackson and Jem Belcher, the one with his magnificent figure, his small waist and Herculean shoulders; the other as graceful as an old Grecian statue, with a head whose beauty many a sculptor had wished to copy, and with those long, delicate lines in shoulder and loins and limbs, which gave him the litheness and activity of a panther.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)