panic.
Alternative letter-case form of Panic (“pertaining to the Greek god Pan”).
Meaning & usage
Alternative letter-case form of Panic (“pertaining to the Greek god Pan”).
Of fear, fright, etc: overwhelming or sudden.
Pertaining to or resulting from overwhelming fear or fright.
Where this word comes from
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”).
Overwhelming fear or fright, often affecting groups of people or animals; (countable) an instance of this; a fright, a scare.
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.
A rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of such prices continuing to decline.
A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.
Where this word comes from
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”).
To cause (someone) to feel panic (“overwhelming fear or fright”); also, to frighten (someone) into acting hastily.
To cause (a computer system) to crash.
To highly amuse, entertain, or impress (an audience watching a performance or show).
To feel panic, or overwhelming fear or fright; to freak out, to lose one's head.
Of a computer system: to crash.
Where this word comes from
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”).
Foxtail millet or Italian millet (Setaria italica), the second-most widely grown species of millet.
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.
The edible grain obtained from one of the above plants.
Where this word comes from
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
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.