What is "panose"

n. (context carbohydrate English) A trisaccharide consisting of three glucose residues

The PANOSE System is a method for classifying typefaces solely on their visual characteristics, developed by Benjamin Bauermeister. It can be used to identify an unknown font from a sample image or to match a known font to its closest visual neighbor from a font pool. The word "PANOSE" is composed of letters taken from the six classes in which the creator of the system organized the Latin alphabet.