Panic
['pænɪk]
Definition
(noun.) an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety.
(noun.) 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'.
(verb.) cause sudden fear in or fill with sudden panic; 'The mere thought of an isolation cell panicked the prisoners'.
(verb.) be overcome by a sudden fear; 'The students panicked when told that final exams were less than a week away'.
Editor: Lorna--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) A plant of the genus Panicum; panic grass; also, the edible grain of some species of panic grass.
(a.) Extreme or sudden and causeless; unreasonable; -- said of fear or fright; as, panic fear, terror, alarm.
(a.) 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.
(a.) By extension: A sudden widespread fright or apprehension concerning financial affairs.
Edited by Lancelot
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. Fright, affright, alarm, terror, consternation, sudden fear.
Typist: Toni
Definition
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.
Checked by Abram
Examples
- And indeed they did; they were quite beyond my uncle's management, and kept the old gentleman in a panic for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- Through Asia, from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the Caspian, from the Hellespont even to the sea of Oman, a sudden panic was driven. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- An instant later I heard him running down, and he burst into my consulting-room like a man who is mad with panic. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
- And Hermione came near, and her bosom writhed, and Ursula was for a moment blank with panic. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- Ord attacked the troops that had crossed the bridge and drove them back in a panic. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- The retreat of the enemy along most of his line was precipitate and the panic so great that Bragg and his officers lost all control over their men. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- I have only hobbled those which are liable to panic, Pablo said. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- It had fought gamely with floods and droughts, with cholera and panics, with desperadoes and with land thieves. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- One suspects at times that our national cult of optimism is no real feeling that the world is good, but a fear that pessimism will produce panics. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
Typist: Maura