panic - English dictionary definition

256,712 references

Display

Online Dictionary > English > panic

1 to 10 of 10 references

Panic A plant of the genus Panicum; panic grass; also, the edible grain of some species of panic grass.
Panic Extreme or sudden and causeless; unreasonable; -- said of fear or fright; as, panic fear, terror, alarm.
Panic 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.
Panic By extension: A sudden widespread fright or apprehension concerning financial affairs.
panic panic 1. What Unix does when a critical internal consistency checks fails in such a way that Unix cannot continue. The kernel attempts to print a short message on the console and write an image of memory into the swap area on disk. This can be analysed later using adb. The kernel will then either wait in a tight loop until the machine is rebooted or will initiate an automatic reboot. Unix manual page: panic8. 2. Action taken by software which discovers some fatal problem which prevents it from continuing to run.
panic an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
panic attack a sudden attack of fear
panic button a button to push in order to summon help in case of an emergency; "the circuit is operated by a panic button"; "when he saw that I was angry he hit the panic button"
panic disorder an anxiety disorder characterized by unpredictable panic attacks; the attacks are usually severe but brief
panic grass any grass of the genus Panicum; grown for grain and fodder

Synonyms for panic

anxiety daunt fear frighten panic terrify terrorist terrorize