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panopticon.

A kind of projector in the 18th and 19th centuries.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/pəˈnɒptɪkɒn/Received-Pronunciation/pæˈ-/Received-Pronunciation/pəˈnɑptɪˌkɑn/General-American/pæˈ-/General-American
  1. A kind of projector in the 18th and 19th centuries.

    historical
  2. A type of prison where all the cells are visible from the center, particularly if it is not possible for those in a cell to know if they are being watched.

  3. A place in which people are subject to constant surveillance at totalitarian command.

    broadly · figuratively
  4. A room for the exhibition of novelties.

Where this word comes from

From Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân, “all”) + ὀπτικός (optikós, “visible”). Coined by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1787.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.