panic

See also: Panic, Panić, and pànic

English
WOTD – 12 April 2022

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

The adjective is borrowed from Middle French panique, a word itself borrowed from Ancient Greek πανικός (panikós, “pertaining to Pan”);[1] Pan, the Greek god of fields and woods, was believed to be the source of mysterious sounds that caused contagious, groundless fear in herds and crowds, or in people in lonely spots.

Adjective sense 3 (“pertaining to or resulting from overpowering fear or fright”) is partly an attributive use of the noun.[1]

The noun is derived from the adjective, while the verb is derived from the noun. Verb sense 1.3 (“to highly amuse, entertain, or impress (an audience watching a performance or show”) is derived from noun sense 4 (“a highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show”).[2]

Adjective

panic (comparative more panic, superlative most panic)

  1. (Greek mythology, archaic) Alternative letter-case form of Panic (“pertaining to the Greek god Pan”)
    Synonyms: Pandean, (obsolete) panical
  2. (by extension (see the etymology))
    1. Of fear, fright, etc: overwhelming or sudden.
      Synonym: (obsolete) panical
    2. Pertaining to or resulting from overwhelming fear or fright.
      • 1642, Thomas Fuller, “The Life of Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden”, in The Holy State, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams, […], →OCLC, book IV, paragraph 5, page 332:
        [H]e perceived how that many women followed his ſouldiers, ſome being their wives, and ſome wanting nothing to make them ſo but marriage, […] The King coming to a great river, after his men and the wagons were paſſed over, cauſed the bridge to be broken down, hoping ſo to be rid of theſe feminine impediments; but they on a ſudden liſt up a panick ſhrick which pierced the skies, and the ſouldiers hearts on the other ſide of the river, who inſtantly vowed not to ſtirre a foot farther, except with baggage, and that the women might be fetch'd over, which was done accordingly.
      • 1705, [Daniel Defoe], The D[utch] Deputies. A Satyr, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 5:
        No Dangers threatned, but they ſmil'd to meet
        The pannick French-men trembling at their Feet.
Alternative forms
Derived terms
Translations

Noun

panic (countable and uncountable, plural panics)

  1. (uncountable) Overwhelming fear or fright, often affecting groups of people or animals; (countable) an instance of this; a fright, a scare.
    • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, “Burglary”, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, →OCLC, page 35:
      She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.
    • 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 7, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 125:
      There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Meeting Point”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 232:
      Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.
    • 1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic (lyrics and music), “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!‎:
      It's Christmas at ground zero
      There's panic in the crowd
      We can dodge debris
      While we trim the tree
      Underneath a mushroom cloud
    • 1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus, New York, N.Y.: Soho Press, →ISBN, page 33:
      With a bolt of fright he remembered that there was no bathroom in the Hobhouse Room. He leapt along the corridor in a panic, stopping by the long-case clock at the end where he flattened himself against the wall.
  2. (countable, computing) Short for kernel panic (“on Unix-derived operating systems: an action taken by the operating system when it cannot recover from a fatal error”); (by extension) any computer system crash.
    • 2010, Solaris system engineers, “Managing Devices”, in Solaris 10 System Administration Essentials (Solaris System Administration Series), Santa Clara, Calif.: Sun Microsystems Press, →ISBN, section 9.3.4.2 (Avoiding Recurring Panic):
      If your new driver has an error that panics the system when you load the driver, then the system will panic again when it tries to reboot after the panic. The system will continue the cycle of panic, reboot, and panic as it attempts to reload the faulty driver every time it reboots after panic.
  3. (countable, economics, finance) A rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of such prices continuing to decline.
    • 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 5, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 91:
      "I thought you inherited your money."
      "I did, old sport," he said automatically, "but I lost most of it in the big panic—the panic of the war."
    • 2008 July 11, Romaine Bostick, “Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac are Sound; Panic Unwarranted, Dodd Says”, in Bloomberg News:
      "There is sort of a panic going on, and that is not what ought to be," [Chris] Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, said at a press conference in Washington today. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were never bottom feeders in the residential mortgage market."
  4. (countable, US, originally theater, colloquial) A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.
Derived terms
Translations
short for kernel panic — see kernel panic

Verb

panic (third-person singular simple present panics, present participle panicking, simple past and past participle panicked)

  1. (transitive)
    1. To cause (someone) to feel panic (“overwhelming fear or fright”); also, to frighten (someone) into acting hastily.
    2. (computing) To cause (a computer system) to crash.
      • 2010, Solaris system engineers, “Managing Devices”, in Solaris 10 System Administration Essentials (Solaris System Administration Series), Santa Clara, Calif.: Sun Microsystems Press, →ISBN, section 9.3.4.2 (Avoiding Recurring Panic):
        If your new driver has an error that panics the system when you load the driver, then the system will panic again when it tries to reboot after the panic. The system will continue the cycle of panic, reboot, and panic as it attempts to reload the faulty driver every time it reboots after panic.
    3. (US, colloquial) To highly amuse, entertain, or impress (an audience watching a performance or show).
  2. (intransitive)
    1. To feel panic, or overwhelming fear or fright; to freak out, to lose one's head.
      • 2019 January 25, 5:22 from the start, in Our House is on Fire‎, spoken by Greta Thunberg, Davos, Graubünden, Switzerland: World Economic Forum:
        I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act.
    2. (computing) Of a computer system: to crash.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2
Foxtail millet or Italian millet (Setaria italica), formerly known as panic (sense 1), grown in Japan.
Common millet or proso millet (Panicum miliaceum), the type species of the genus Panicum, is a form of panic (sense 2).
The grain obtained from panicgrasses, in this case proso millet (Panicum miliaceum), is also called panic (sense 3).

From Late Middle English panik, panyk (“plant of the genus Panicum”),[3] borrowed from Latin pānicum, pānīcum (“foxtail millet or Italian millet (Setaria italica); plant of the genus Panicum, panicgrass”); further etymology uncertain, probably either from pānis (“bread; loaf”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to graze; to protect; to shepherd”)) or pānus (“ear of millet; thread wound on a bobbin”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)penh₁- (“to twist; to weave”)) + -cum (suffix forming neuter nouns). Doublet of bannock and bonnag[4]

Noun

panic (countable and uncountable, plural panics)

  1. (originally) Foxtail millet or Italian millet (Setaria italica), the second-most widely grown species of millet.
  2. (by extension) A plant of the genus Panicum, or of similar plants of other genera (especially Echinochloa and Setaria) formerly included within Panicum; panicgrass or panic grass.
    • 1562, Wylliam Turner [i.e., William Turner], “Of Panick”, in The Second Parte of Guilliam Turners Herball⸝ […], Cologne: […] Arnold Birckman, →OCLC, folios 76, recto – 76, verso:
      [folio 76, recto] Panicum […] hathe no name in Engliſh yet⸝ but it may well be called panick after yͤ Latin. Panik hath leues lyke vnto a rede when it commeth firſt furth. […] [folio 76, verso] Dioſcorides writeth yͭ Panic hathe the ſame vertue yͭ Milleth hathe⸝ but that it noriſheth & byndeth leſſe. Galene ſayeth yͭ panic is of the kynde of pulſes⸝ and in lykenes lyke vnto millet⸝ and alſo in vertue of ſmall noriſhmẽt⸝ and dry.
      Panicum […] hath no name in English yet, but it may well be called panic after the Latin. Panic hath leaves like unto a reed when it cometh first forth. […] [Pedanius] Dioscorides writeth that panic hath the same virtue that millet hath, but that it nourisheth and bindeth less. Galen sayeth that panic is of the kind of pulses, and in likeness like unto millet, and also in virtue of small nourishment, and dry.
    • 1597, John Gerarde [i.e., John Gerard], “Of Panick”, in The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. […], London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant, for Bonham and Iohn Norton, →OCLC, book I, page 78:
      There be ſundrie ſorts of Panick, although of the ancients there hathe beene ſet downe but two, that is to ſay, the wilde or fielde Panick, and the garden or manured Panick: […]
  3. The edible grain obtained from one of the above plants.
    • 1597, John Gerarde [i.e., John Gerard], “Of Panick”, in The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. […], London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant, for Bonham and Iohn Norton, →OCLC, book I, page 79:
      Pannick ſtoppeth the laske as Millet doth, being boiled (as Plinie reporteth) in Goates milk and drunke twiſe in a day. Bread made of Pannick nouriſheth little, and is cold and dry, verie brittle, hauing in it neither clammineſſe, nor fatneſſe; and therefore it drieth a moiſt belly.
Alternative forms
Derived terms
Translations
Setaria italica — see foxtail millet
plant of the genus Panicum, or of similar plants of other genera formerly included within Panicum — see panicgrass

References
  1. “panic, adj. and n.2”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2021; “panic1, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. “panic, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2021; “panic1, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. “pānik, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. Compare “panic, n.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “panic2, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams

Czech

Etymology

Inherited from Old Czech panic, pannic. By surface analysis, pán +‎ -ic.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): [ˈpaɲɪt͡s]
  • Hyphenation: pa‧nic

Noun

panic m anim (feminine panna)

  1. male virgin

Declension
Declension of panic (soft masculine animate)
singular plural
nominative panic panicové, panici
genitive panice paniců
dative panicovi, panici panicům
accusative panice panice
vocative panici panicové, panici
locative panicovi, panici panicích
instrumental panicem panici

Further reading
  • panic in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
  • panic in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989
  • panic in Internetová jazyková příručka

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin panicum.

Pronunciation

Noun

panic m (plural panics)

  1. (botany) cockspur grass, panic, panicgrass
    Synonyms: pied-de-coq, patte de poule, crête de coq

Derived terms
  • panic bleu
  • panic dressé
  • panic du Brésil
  • panic d’Italie
  • panic épineux
  • panic érigé

Further reading

Slovak

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈpaɲit͡s/

Noun

panic m anim (genitive singular panica, nominative plural panici, genitive plural panicov, declension pattern of chlap)

  1. male virgin

Declension
Declension of panic
singular plural
nominative panic panici
genitive panica panicov
dative panicovi panicom
accusative panica panicov
locative panicovi panicoch
instrumental panicom panicmi

Derived terms

Further reading
  • “panic”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2024
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