Panic

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈpænɪk/
• Rhymes: -ænɪk

From Middle French panique, from Ancient Greek πανικός ("pertaining to Pan"), from Πάν ("Pan"). Pan (god) is the god of woods and fields who was the source of mysterious sounds that caused contagious, groundless fear in herds and crowds, or in people in lonely spots.

Alternative forms

• panick obsolete

Full definition of panic

Adjective

1. (now rare) Pertaining to the god Pan.
2. Of fear, fright etc: sudden or overwhelming (attributed by the ancient Greeks to the influence of Pan).
• 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 pp. 57-8:All things were there in a disordered confusion, and in a confused furie, untill such time as by praiers and sacrifices they had appeased the wrath of their Gods. They call it to this day, the Panike terror.
• 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber & Faber 1992 (Avignon Quintet), p. 537:At that moment a flight of birds passed close overhead, and at the whirr of their wings a panic fear seized her.
• 1993, James Michie, trans. Ovid, The Art of Love, Book II:Terrified, he looked down from the skies
  At the waves, and panic blackness filled his eyes.

Noun

1. Overpowering fright, often affecting groups of people or animals.
• 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, Nobody, She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 19, 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.
• 1994, Stephen Fry, The Hippopotamus Chapter 2With 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. (finance, economics) Rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of continuing decline in asset prices.
• 2008, July 11, Romaine Bostick, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Are Sound; Panic Unwarranted, Dodd Says, "There is sort of a panic going on, and that is not what ought to be," 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."

Derived terms

• panic attack
• panic button
• panic disorder
• panic room

Verb

1. To feel overwhelming fear.

Related terms

• panicky

Latin panicum.

Noun