Definitions for panic
ˈpæn ɪkpan·ic

Princeton's WordNet(3.50 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. panic, terror, affrightnoun

   an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety

2. panic, scareverb

   sudden mass fear and anxiety over anticipated events

   "panic in the stock market"; "a war scare"; "a bomb scare led them to evacuate the building"

3. panicverb

   be overcome by a sudden fear

   "The students panicked when told that final exams were less than a week away"

4. panicverb

   cause sudden fear in or fill with sudden panic

   "The mere thought of an isolation cell panicked the prisoners"

Wiktionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. panicnoun

   Overpowering fright, often affecting groups of people or animals.

   Etymology: From panique, from πανικός. Pan 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.

2. panicnoun

   Rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of continuing decline in asset prices.

   Etymology: From panique, from πανικός. Pan 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.

3. panicverb

   To feel overwhelming fear.

   Etymology: From panique, from πανικός. Pan 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.

4. panicadjective

   Pertaining to the god Pan.

   Etymology: From panique, from πανικός. Pan 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.

5. panicadjective

   Of fear, fright etc: sudden or overwhelming (attributed by the ancient Greeks to the influence of Pan).

   Etymology: From panique, from πανικός. Pan 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.

6. Panicadjective

   Pandean

   Etymology: From panique, from πανικός. Pan 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.

Webster Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Panicnoun

   a plant of the genus Panicum; panic grass; also, the edible grain of some species of panic grass

   Etymology: [L. panicum.]

2. Panicadjective

   extreme or sudden and causeless; unreasonable; -- said of fear or fright; as, panic fear, terror, alarm

   Etymology: [L. panicum.]

3. Panicadjective

   a sudden, overpowering fright; esp., a sudden and groundless fright; terror inspired by a trifling cause or a misapprehension of danger; as, the troops were seized with a panic; they fled in a panic

   Etymology: [L. panicum.]

4. Panicadjective

   by extension: A sudden widespread fright or apprehension concerning financial affairs

   Etymology: [L. panicum.]

Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Panic

   Panic is a sudden sensation of fear which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reaction. Panic may occur singularly in individuals or manifest suddenly in large groups as mass panic. The word panic derives from the Greek πανικός, "pertaining to shepherd god Pan", who took amusement from frightening herds of goats and sheep into sudden bursts of uncontrollable fear. The ancient Greeks credited the battle of Marathon's victory to Pan, using his name for the frenzied, frantic fear exhibited by the fleeing enemy soldiers. Prehistoric men used mass panic as a technique when hunting animals, especially ruminants. Herds reacting to unusually strong sounds or unfamiliar visual effects were directed towards cliffs, where they eventually jumped to their deaths when cornered. Humans are also vulnerable to panic and it is often considered infectious, in the sense one person's panic may easily spread to other people nearby and soon the entire group acts irrationally, but people also have the ability to prevent and/or control their own and others' panic by disciplined thinking or training. Architects and city planners try to accommodate the symptoms of panic, such as herd behavior, during design and planning, often using simulations to determine the best way to lead people to a safe exit and prevent congestion. The most effective methods are often non-intuitive. A tall column, approximately 1 ft in diameter, placed in front of the door exit at a precisely calculated distance, may speed up the evacuation of a large room by up to 30%, as the obstacle divides the congestion well ahead of the choke point.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Panic

   pan′ik, n. extreme or sudden fright: great terror without any visible ground or foundation: a state of terror about investments produced by some startling collapse in credit, impelling men to rush and sell what they possess.—adj. of the nature of a panic: extreme or sudden: imaginary.—adj. Pan′icky (coll.), inclined to panic or sudden terror, affected by financial panic.—n. Pan′ic-mong′er, one who creates panics.—adjs. Pan′ic-strick′en, Pan′ic-struck, struck with a panic or sudden fear. [Orig. an adj.; Gr. panikon (deima), 'panic' (fear), from panikos, belonging to Pan, god of the woods.]

U.S. National Library of Medicine(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Panic

   A state of extreme acute, intense anxiety and unreasoning fear accompanied by disorganization of personality function.

Military Dictionary and Gazetteer(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. panic

   A sudden fright; especially, a sudden fright without real cause, or terror inspired by a trifling cause, or misapprehension of danger; as, the troops were seized with a panic; they fled in a panic. These terrors are attributed to Pan, as some say, because when Osiris was bound by Typho, Pan and the satyrs appearing, cast him into a fright; or because he frightened all the giants that waged war against Jupiter; or, as others say, that when Pan was Bacchus’s lieutenant-general in his Indian expedition, being encompassed in a valley by an army of enemies far superior to them in number, he advised the god to order his men to give a general shout, which so surprised the enemy that they immediately fled from their camp. And hence it came to pass that all sudden fears impressed upon men’s spirits without any just reason were, by the Greeks and Romans, called panic terrors.

Suggested Resources(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. panic

   Song lyrics by panic -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by panic on the Lyrics.com website.

Matched Categories

1. • Fear
   • Terrify

British National Corpus

1. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'panic' in Nouns Frequency: #2025

How to pronounce panic?

1. Alex

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

How to say panic in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of panic in Chaldean Numerology is: 9

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of panic in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7

Examples of panic in a Sentence

1. Emma Dowd:

   Melissa Falkowski is an amazing educator who deserves praise for what she did. I had multiple panic attacks while locked in the closet with 19 other people for numerous hours.

2. Mehmet Murat ildan:

   Anything can happen; this is the very rule of this universe! The best defence against this rule is this: Don’t panic!

3. Kimmi Berlin:

   The energy he was expending trying to do it made him almost feel like a trapped animal, he couldn't really get in touch with how he felt about anything because he was in constant panic mode.

4. Kyosuke Suzuki:

   The market had been a bit optimistic about an agreement so it was a bit of a surprise, but from the past experience during the euro zone debt crisis, the market is also accustomed to negotiations dragging on until the very last minute. So while the tail risk appears to be rising, there is no panic in the market.

5. The Wall Street Journal:

   Donald Trump is now trying to blunt that rebuke by distorting the truth about the hijackers and the Osama bin Ladenera … Blaming George W. Bush for the 9/11 attacks is like blaming PresidentObamafor the recession that followed the 2008 financial panic, the rise of al Qaeda had been going on for years, and its first attack on U.S. soil was its bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Images & Illustrations of panic

Popularity rank by frequency of use