panic

English Online Dictionary. What means panic‎? What does panic mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpænɪk/
• Rhymes: -ænɪk
• Hyphenation: pan‧ic

Etymology 1

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”).

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.

Alternative forms

• panick (obsolete)

Derived terms

• panical (obsolete)

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.
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.
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.
4. (countable, US, originally theater, colloquial) A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.

Derived terms

Translations

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.
   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.
   2. (computing) Of a computer system: to crash.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Late Middle English panik, panyk (“plant of the genus Panicum”), 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

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.
3. The edible grain obtained from one of the above plants.

Alternative forms

• panick (obsolete)

Derived terms

• hairy panic
• panicgrass, panic grass

Related terms

• panicum
• Panicum

Translations

References

Further reading

• panic on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• kernel panic on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• panic (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• foxtail millet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Setaria italica on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
  • Setaria italica on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Panicum on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Panicum on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
  • Panicum on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

Anagrams

• cap'in, incap

Czech

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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

Noun

panic m anim (female equivalent panna)

1. male virgin

Declension

Related terms

Further reading

• “panic”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “panic”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “panic”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech)

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin panicum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa.nik/
• Homophones: panique, paniquent, paniques

Noun

panic m (plural panics)

1. (botany) cockspur grass, panic, panicgrass

   Synonyms: pied-de-coq, patte de poule, crête de coq

Derived terms

Further reading

• “panic”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• “panic” in Dictionnaire français en ligne Larousse.
• “panic” in Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1872–1877.

Slovak

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈpaɲit͡s]

Noun

panic m pers (female equivalent panna, related adjective panický)

1. male virgin

Declension

Derived terms

• panický
• panicky
• panickosť, panictvo

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, 2003–2024