panic

adj

1. (Greek, alt-of, archaic)Alternative letter-case form of Panic (“pertaining to the Greek god Pan”).
2. Of fear, fright, etc: overwhelming or sudden.

   “All things were there in a diſordered confuſion, and in a confuſed furie, vntill ſuch time as by prayers and ſacrifices they had appeaſed the wrath of their Gods. They call it to this day, the P[a]nike terror.”

   “So long as Epaminondas was captaine general of the Thebans, there was never ſeene in his campe any of theſe ſudden fooliſh frights, without any certeine cauſe, which they call Panique Terrores.”

   “But why dwell I ſo intolerable long about Tolerations, I hope my feares are but panick, againſt which I have a double cordiall.”

   “[L]ike a couragious Captain does all he can to imbody his Army; he perſwades, threats, oppoſes, and cries aloud, that albeit Bickermanſe was ſlain yet He was living; yea that many as good Officers as Bickermanſe were in the Army; But in vain; for ſuch was their diſorder and pannick fear, that impoſſible it was to revoke them: […]”

   “Suſpicion, with Sedition join'd, are near; And Rumors rais'd, and Murmurs mix'd, and Panique Fear.”

3. Pertaining to or resulting from overwhelming fear or fright.

   “No Dangers threatned, but they ſmil'd to meet The pannick French-men trembling at their Feet.”

4. (Greek, archaic)Synonym of Pandean (“pertaining to the Greek god Pan”).

noun

1. (uncountable)Overwhelming fear or fright, often affecting groups of people or animals; (countable) an instance of this; a fright, a scare.

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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”

   “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.”

2. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis)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.

   “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.”

3. (countable)A rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of such prices continuing to decline.

   “"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."”

   “"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."”

4. (US, colloquial, countable)A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.
5. (countable, uncountable)Foxtail millet or Italian millet (Setaria italica), the second-most widely grown species of millet.
6. (broadly, countable, uncountable)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.

   “[folio 76, recto] Panicum […] hathe no name in Engliſh yet⸝ but it may well be called panick after yͤ Latin. Panik hath leues lyke vnto a rede when it commeth firſt furth. […] [folio 76, verso] Dioſcorides writeth yͭ Panic hathe the ſame vertue yͭ Milleth hathe⸝ but that it noriſheth & byndeth leſſe. Galene ſayeth yͭ panic is of the kynde of pulſes⸝ and in lykenes lyke vnto millet⸝ and alſo in vertue of ſmall noriſhmẽt⸝ and dry.”

   “There be ſundrie ſorts of Panick, although of the ancients there hathe beene ſet downe but two, that is to ſay, the wilde or fielde Panick, and the garden or manured Panick: […]”

7. (countable, uncountable)The edible grain obtained from one of the above plants.

   “Pannick ſtoppeth the laske as Millet doth, being boiled (as Plinie reporteth) in Goates milk and drunke twiſe in a day. Bread made of Pannick nouriſheth little, and is cold and dry, verie brittle, hauing in it neither clammineſſe, nor fatneſſe; and therefore it drieth a moiſt belly.”

verb

1. (transitive)To cause (someone) to feel panic (“overwhelming fear or fright”); also, to frighten (someone) into acting hastily.

   “He told us he'd almost stepped on Ellen's body that night—dead and stiffening. Then I'd come round the corner and hailed him, and that panicked him.”

2. (transitive)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.”

3. (US, colloquial, transitive)To highly amuse, entertain, or impress (an audience watching a performance or show).
4. (intransitive)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.”

5. (intransitive)Of a computer system: to crash.