panic

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”).

adj

1. (Greek mythology, archaic) Alternative letter-case form of Panic (“pertaining to the Greek god Pan”)
2. (by extension (see the etymology))
   1. Of fear, fright, etc: overwhelming or sudden.
      At that moment a flight of birds passed close overhead, and at the whirr of their wings a panic fear seized her. 1978, Lawrence Durrell, “Lord Galen’s Farewell”, in Livia: Or Buried Alive[…] (The Avignon Quintet; 2), London, Boston, Mass.: Faber and Faber, page 239
      Terrified, he looked down from the skies At the waves, and panic blackness filled his eyes. 1993, Ovid, “Book Two”, in James Michie, transl., The Art of Love, paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, published 2002
   2. Pertaining to or resulting from overwhelming fear or fright.

noun

1. (uncountable) Overwhelming fear or fright, often affecting groups of people or animals; (countable) an instance of this; a fright, a scare.
   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 1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic (lyrics and music), “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!
   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. 1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus, New York, N.Y.: Soho Press, page 33
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.
   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. 2010, Solaris system engineers, “Managing Devices”, in Solaris 10 System Administration Essentials (Solaris System Administration Series), Santa Clara, Calif.: Sun Microsystems Press, section 9.3.4.2 (Avoiding Recurring 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.
   "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." 11 July 2008, Romaine Bostick, “Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac are Sound; Panic Unwarranted, Dodd Says”, in Bloomberg News
4. (countable, US, originally theater, colloquial) A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.

verb

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.
      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. 2010, Solaris system engineers, “Managing Devices”, in Solaris 10 System Administration Essentials (Solaris System Administration Series), Santa Clara, Calif.: Sun Microsystems Press, section 9.3.4.2 (Avoiding Recurring 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.
      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. 25 January 2019, 5:22 from the start, in Our House is on Fire, spoken by Greta Thunberg, Davos, Graubünden, Switzerland: World Economic Forum
   2. (computing) Of a computer system: to crash.

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).

noun

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.