Panic

How to spell panic

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce panic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does panic mean?

1. nounA sudden, overwhelming feeling of fear or anxiety, often spreading through a group.
2. verbTo feel or cause to feel sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety.

Panic in a sentence

• noun

  A wave of panic spread through the office when the alarm sounded.

• verb

  Try not to panic if the train is delayed for a few minutes.

• noun

  She felt a flash of panic when she could not find her passport.

• verb

  A small leak should not make anyone panic about the whole roof.

Where does panic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek panikos, meaning 'of Pan' or 'belonging to Pan'. Pan was the rural Greek god of woods, flocks, and shepherds, and the Greeks blamed him for the sudden, groundless terror that could sweep through a herd of animals or a crowd of people, especially the unexplained fright felt in lonely places at night. The Greek phrase panikon deima literally meant 'fear caused by Pan'. French borrowed the idea as panique, originally an adjective, and English picked it up in the 1600s, at first as 'panic fear' before the word settled into a noun and verb in its own right. The spelling keeps the simple Greek root with no doubled letters, though the verb forms add a k (panicked, panicking) to keep the hard c sound, which is the small trap worth remembering.

How the word is built

• panic- (from Greek panikos, of Pan)
• adopted whole into English