Sudden, overwhelming, unreasoning fear that disrupts rational thought and causes frantic activity.
Sudden, overwhelming, unreasoning fear that disrupts rational thought and causes frantic activity — often contagious through a crowd.
Defined by three features: abruptness, the shutting-down of reason (it floods over you and overrides judgment), and a strong pull toward the collective and catching — often with a mismatch between trigger and reaction. This sets it apart from fright (a brief individual shock, not reason-destroying or collective) and terror (extreme in intensity but not defined by loss of reason or by crowds). Also has clinical (“panic attack”) and financial senses.
Sudden, overwhelming, unreasoning fear that disrupts thought, often spreading through a crowd.
From the Greek god Pan, blamed for the contagious, groundless fear of herds and crowds in lonely places.
A discrete episode of intense fear with strong physical symptoms.
“Panic attack” dates to about 1970.
A wave of fear in a trading community, prompting a rush to sell.
This sense is recorded by 1757.
1708 as a noun “sudden mass terror,” from an earlier adjective (c. 1600), from Greek panikon “pertaining to Pan,” the god held to cause mysterious, contagious, groundless fear; short for panikon deima “panic fright.”
Developed from an attributive adjective (“panic fear,” c. 1600) to a standalone noun (1708). Extended to finance by 1757; “panic-stricken” (1804); “panic button” figuratively (1948); “panic attack” (c. 1970).