adj

• (Greek mythology, archaic) Alternative letter-case form of Panic (“pertaining to the Greek god Pan”).
• (by extension (see the etymology))
  "All things were there in a diſordered confuſion, and in a confuſed furie, vntill ſuch time as by prayers and ſacrifices they had appeaſed the wrath of their Gods. They call it to this day, the P[a]nike terror."
• (by extension (see the etymology))
  "[H]e perceived how that many women followed his ſouldiers, ſome being their wives, and ſome wanting nothing to make them ſo but marriage, […] The King coming to a great river, after his men and the wagons were paſſed over, cauſed the bridge to be broken down, hoping ſo to be rid of theſe feminine impediments; but they on a ſudden liſt up a panick ſhrick which pierced the skies, and the ſouldiers hearts on the other ſide of the river, who inſtantly vowed not to ſtirre a foot farther, except with baggage, and that the women might be fetch'd over, which was done accordingly."

noun

• (uncountable) Overwhelming fear or fright, often affecting groups of people or animals; (countable) an instance of this; a fright, a scare.
  "She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky."
• (countable, computing) Ellipsis of kernel panic (“on Unix-derived operating systems: an action taken by the operating system when it cannot recover from a fatal error”); (by extension) any computer system crash.
  "If your new driver has an error that panics the system when you load the driver, then the system will panic again when it tries to reboot after the panic. The system will continue the cycle of panic, reboot, and panic as it attempts to reload the faulty driver every time it reboots after panic."
• (countable, economics, finance) A rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of such prices continuing to decline.
  ""I thought you inherited your money." "I did, old sport," he said automatically, "but I lost most of it in the big panic—the panic of the war.""
• (countable, US, originally theater, colloquial) A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.

verb

• (transitive)
  "He told us he'd almost stepped on Ellen's body that night—dead and stiffening. Then I'd come round the corner and hailed him, and that panicked him."
• (transitive)
  "If your new driver has an error that panics the system when you load the driver, then the system will panic again when it tries to reboot after the panic. The system will continue the cycle of panic, reboot, and panic as it attempts to reload the faulty driver every time it reboots after panic."
• (transitive)
• (intransitive)
  "I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act."

noun

• (originally) Foxtail millet or Italian millet (Setaria italica), the second-most widely grown species of millet.
• (by extension) A plant of the genus Panicum, or of similar plants of other genera (especially Echinochloa and Setaria) formerly included within Panicum; panicgrass or panic grass.
  "[folio 76, recto] Panicum […] hathe no name in Engliſh yet⸝ but it may well be called panick after yͤ Latin. Panik hath leues lyke vnto a rede when it commeth firſt furth. […] [folio 76, verso] Dioſcorides writeth yͭ Panic hathe the ſame vertue yͭ Milleth hathe⸝ but that it noriſheth & byndeth leſſe. Galene ſayeth yͭ panic is of the kynde of pulſes⸝ and in lykenes lyke vnto millet⸝ and alſo in vertue of ſmall noriſhmẽt⸝ and dry."