PANIC

panic 1 |ˈpanik| noun sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior : she hit him in panic | [in sing. ] he ran to the library in a blind panic. • widespread financial or commercial apprehension provoking hasty action : he caused an economic panic by his sudden resignation | [as adj. ] panic selling. • informal a frenzied hurry to do something : a workload of constant panics and rush jobs. verb ( -icked , -icking ) [ intrans. ] be affected by panic : the crowd panicked and stampeded for the exit. • [ trans. ] cause to feel panic : talk of love panicked her. DERIVATIVES panicky adjective ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from French panique, from modern Latin panicus, from Greek panikos, from the name of the god Pan , noted for causing terror, to whom woodland noises were attributed.panic 2 (also panic grass) noun any of a number of cereal and fodder grasses related to millet. • Panicum and related genera, family Gramineae.ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin panicum, from panus ‘ear of millet’ (literally ‘thread wound on a bobbin’ ), based on Greek pēnos ‘web,’ pēnion ‘bobbin.’