panic
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpænɪk/
rhymes: -ænɪk
Forms: form: panics
Etymology: The adjective is borrowed from Middle French panique, a word itself borrowed from Ancient Greek πανικός (panikós, “pertaining to Pan”); 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.
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”).
Senses: examples: text: She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.
ref: 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II (Burglary), page 378, column 1:
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, “Meeting Point”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 232:
text: 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
ref: 1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!:
text: 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.
ref: 1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus, New York, N.Y.: Soho Press, →ISBN, page 33:
glosses: Overwhelming fear or fright, often affecting groups of people or animals; (countable) an instance of this; a fright, a scare.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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):
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: Ellipsis of 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.
examples: text: "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."
ref: 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:
text: "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."
ref: 2008 July 11, Romaine Bostick, “Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac are Sound; Panic Unwarranted, Dodd Says”, in Bloomberg News:
topics: business
economics
finance
sciences
glosses: A rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of such prices continuing to decline.
glosses: A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.
Derived terms: antipanic
gay panic
gay panic defense
homosexual panic defense
kernel panic
moral panic
panican
panic attack
panic bar
panic-bought
panic button
panic buyer
panic disorder
panic door
panicful
panicky
panicless
paniclike
panicmonger
panicmongering
panicogenesis
panicogenic
panic party
panic rev
panic room
panic sell
panic seller
panic snap
panic stations
panic-stricken
panic-strike
panic-struck
Panicsville
press the panic button
satanic panic
spider-panic
trans panic
trans panic defense