This paper discusses the etymology of the Russian word пантера ‘panther’ and its other variants in Old Russian and Russian. The Greek word πάνθηρis a direct or indirect source of all of the investigated forms, but several other languages (Old Church Slavonic, German, French) are involved in the borrowing process as media. The solutions proposed in the article are based on extended method inventory, which includes both traditional methods of historical linguistics and some new proposals connected with extralinguistic factors (Wörter und Sachen method).