pant

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
pant/pant/

▶verb

• 1 breathe with short, quick breaths, typically from exertion.

  ■ long for or to do something.

• 2 literary (of the heart or chest) throb violently from strong emotions.

▶noun a short, quick breath.

– derivatives
panting adjective,
pantingly adverb.

– origin ME: rel. to OFr. pantaisier ‘be agitated, gasp’, based on Gk phantasioun ‘cause to imagine’, from phantasia (see fantasy).