| 释义 |
▪ I. panic, n.1|ˈpænɪk|
Also 5–6 -yk(e, 6–7 -ik(e, -icke, 6–9 -ick; 6 pannycke, 9 -ick.
[ad. L. pānicum, in It. panico, F. panic.]
a. A grass or graminaceous plant: originally applied to Panicum italicum of Linnæus (Setaria italica of later botanists), otherwise called Italian Millet, largely cultivated in Southern Europe, etc.; also extended to other species of the genus Panicum and its subgenera, many of which are cultivated in different parts of the world as cereal grains.
Panicum is a very extensive genus; Steudel describes 850 species, grouped under eighteen sections, many of these being distinct genera with other authors. (Treas. Bot.).
c1420Pallad. on Husb. iv. 50 Panyk & mylde in hoot & drie is sowe As now. 1555Eden Decades 260 Of Moscouia..the fieldes beare..also mylle and panyke whiche the Italians caule Melica. 1562Turner Herbal ii. 76 b, Panic is of the kynde of pulses, and in lykenes lyke vnto millet. 1597Gerarde Herbal i. lvi. 78 There be sundrie sorts of Panick. Ibid., The Panick of India groweth vp like Millet. 1610W. Folkingham Art of Survey i. vii. 14 Saffron, Mill, Millet, Panick, Amilcorne, Spelt-corn, Garences. 1732Arbuthnot Rules of Diet i. 251 Panick, aperient, boil'd with Milk. 1814Southey Roderick Wks. 1838 IX. 378 note, The Hermit took a loaf..made of pannick and of rye. 1852Badger Nestorians I. 214 Three kinds of millet or pannick..make the bread-flour in general use.
b. attrib. and Comb., as panic-bread, panic-seed; panic-grass, any grassy species of Panicum, as P. (Echinochloa) Crus-galli, a weed of cultivated and waste ground in England.
1591Percivall Sp. Dict., Panojo, pannycke seede, Pannicula. 1597Gerard Herball i. 7 Pannicke grasse is garnished with chaffie and downie tufts. 1668Wilkins Real Char. ii. iv. 73 Panic-Grass. 1797W. Johnston tr. Beckmann's Invent. II. 248 note, The slender spiked cock's foot panic-grass, panicum sanguinale. 1814Southey Roderick Wks. 1838 IX. 399 note, The king would eat only of the pannick bread, as he had been wont to do. 1835Hooker Brit. Flora I. 43 Panicum Crus-galli, Loose Panick-grass. 1870W. Robinson Wild Garden ii. 121 Twiggy Panic Grass..is an elegant plant. 1901C. T. Mohr Plant Life Alabama 355 Wiry Panic-Grass... Exposed places in light soil. 1929Weaver & Clements Plant Ecol. vii. 134 (caption) Competition between tall panic grass and evening primrose. 1963Gleason & Cronquist Man. Vascular Plants Northeastern U.S. 101 Panic grass. Spikelets lanceolate or hisiform to ovate.
▪ II. panic, a. and n.2|ˈpænɪk|
Forms: 7– panic; also 7 -ique, -ik, 7–8 -ick, pannick, -ic.
[a. F. panique adj. (15th c. in Littré) = It. panico (Florio); ad. Gr. πανικός adj. of or for Pan, groundless (fear), whence πανικόν neut. n. panic terror, a panic.
‘Sounds heard by night on mountains and in vallies were attributed to Pan, and hence he was reputed to be the cause of any sudden and groundless fear’ (Liddell and Scott). Stories more or less elaborated, accounting for the origin of the expression, are found in Plutarch's Lives (Langhorne's tr. (1879) II. 701/2), Polyænus' Stratagems (written c 160 a.d.; cf. Potter Greece iii. ix.), etc.]
A. adj. (Now often viewed as attrib. use of B.)
1. a. In panic fear, panic terror, etc.: Such as was attributed to the action of the god Pan: = B. 2.
1603Holland Plutarch's Mor. 425 Sudden foolish frights, without any certeine cause, which they call Panique Terrores. Ibid. 1293 All sudden tumults and troubles of the multitude and common people, be called Panique affrights. 1647Ward Simp. Cobler 11, I hope my feares are but panick. 1665Sir T. Herbert Trav. (1677) 241 That great Army..were put into that pannick fear that they were shamefully put to flight. 1700Dryden Fables, Cock & Fox 731 Ran cow and calf and family of hogs, In panique horror of pursuing dogs. 1770Langhorne Plutarch (1879) II. 701/2 A panic fear ran through the camp. 1850Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) II. xiv. 134 A sound of panic dread to the populations of Italy.
b. Of the nature of or resulting from a panic; exhibiting unreasoning, groundless, or excessive fear.
1741in Johnson's Debates Parl. (1787) I. 386 The tumults of ambition in one place, and a panic stillness in another. 1824Galt Rothelan II. iii. vii. 70 He cried, with a shrill and panic voice, for Shebak.
†2. Of noise, etc.: Such as was attributed to Pan.
a1661B. Holyday Juvenal 120 Which..they thought might be prevented by making a loud and panick noise with brasen vessels.
†3. Universal, general. Obs. nonce-use.
a1661Fuller Worthies xxiv. (1662) 77 Seeing sometimes a Pannick silence herein.
4. (cap.) Of or pertaining to the god Pan: as, Bacchic and Panic figures.
1890in Cent. Dict.
B. n.2 [= mod.F. une panique.]
†1. Contagious emotion such as was ascribed to the influence of Pan. Obs.
1627tr. Bacon's Life & Death (1651) 15 Seeing Pan was their God, we may conceive, that all Things about them were Panicks [L. Panica adj.], and vaine, and subject to Fables. 1708Shaftesbury Charact. (1711) I. i. ii. 15 We may..call every Passion Pannick which is rais'd in a Multitude, and convey'd by Aspect, or as it were by Contact or Sympathy. Ibid. 16 There are many Pannicks in Mankind, besides merely that of Fear. And thus is Religion also Pannick.
2. a. (= panic fear, terror, etc.; see A. 1): A sudden and excessive feeling of alarm or fear, usually affecting a body of persons, originating in some real or supposed danger vaguely apprehended, and leading to extravagant or injudicious efforts to secure safety. (With and without a and pl.)
1708Shaftesbury Charact. (1711) I. i. ii. 15 The Uncertainty of what they fear'd made their Fear get greater... And this was what in after-times men call'd a Pannick. 1709Steele Tatler No. 18 ⁋6 The Approach of a Peace strikes a Pannick thro' our Armies, tho' that of a Battle could never do it. 1818Jas. Mill Brit. India II. iv. viii. 277 The General..fulfilled the fondest wishes of Hyder, by taking the panic, and running away from the army. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. II. xii. 123 Parental instinct was mastered by panic. 1867Freeman Norm. Conq. I. v. 375 An unaccountable panic seized on all men. 1879Froude Cæsar xxii. 382 Cæsar's soldiers were seized with panic.
b. spec. A condition of widespread apprehension in relation to financial and commercial matters, arising in a time of monetary difficulty or crisis, and leading to hasty and violent measures to secure immunity from possible loss, the tendency of which is to cause financial disaster.
1757Harris Coins 31 No alteration can be made in the standard of money without..producing..distrusts and panics. 1826C. Knight Pop. Hist. Eng. VIII. xi. 195 This pecuniary crisis [in 1825]..universally obtained the name of ‘The Panic’. 1826T. Attwood 27 Feb. in Life viii. (1885) 104 Smith, Payn and Smith, and Barclays have had last week very sharp runs upon them. In many Country Towns also these pleasant ‘panics’ have prevailed. 1863Fawcett Pol. Econ. iii. xi. (1876) 442 Commercial panics are caused by a reckless employment of credit.
c. fig. A noteworthy or amusing person, thing, or situation.
1936R. Ackland After October i. 47 Oh, my dear, aren't you swell! All grown up and sophisticated. Doesn't she look a panic, Timmy? Ibid. 49 My dear, it was a panic! 1946T. Williams 27 Wagons Cotton iii. 27 Flora: Says—(She goes off into another spasm of laughter.) Jake: What ever he said must've been a panic!
3. attrib. and Comb.
a. attrib. Of or pertaining to a panic or panics; resulting from panic.
1842Southern Q. Rev. I. 88 The sudden and violent contraction of 1833..produced the scenes of what is usually termed the ‘panic session’. 1854T. H. Benton 30 Years' View I. 369/2 On the second day of December, 1833, commenced the first session of the Twenty-third Congress, commonly called the Panic Session. 1884Giffen in Pall Mall G. 19 Dec. 4/1 The appreciation..was one not to be regarded with a panic feeling. 1894Daily News 12 July 5/1 The Bill,..as a pure panic measure, must stand or fall by the general estimate of the gravity of the circumstances which have given rise to it.
b. Comb. (often not distinctly separable from attrib. use), as panic-cry, panic-cure, panic-dread, panic-flight, panic-master; panic-driven, panic-like, panic-pale, panic-stunned adjs.; panic bolt, a special bolt for a door designed to unfasten readily in emergencies; panic button, a switch or button for operating various devices in emergencies (see quots.); also fig. in phr. hit, press, the panic button, to become over-excited, take emergency measures (the origin of the expression is discussed in Amer. Speech XXXI (1956) no. 3, 240); panic buying, the buying in large quantities of goods of which a shortage is threatened or suspected; hence (as a back-formation) panic-buy v.; panic-monger, one who endeavours to bring about or foster a panic, esp. on a political, social, or financial question; an alarmist: a term of opprobrium; hence panic-mongering; panic party (see quots. 1929, 1943); panic stations, a state of emergency (freq. fig.); panic-stricken, -struck, a., stricken with panic; so panic-strike v.; panic-striking, causing, or likely to cause, a panic.
1930Aberdeen Press & Jrnl. 1 May 7/3 When he took the cinema in July, 1928, he put *panic bolts on the wooden door..where there were ordinary slip bolts before. 1940Chambers's Techn. Dict. 611/2 Panic bolt, a special form of door-bolt which is released by pressure at the middle of the door; commonly used on exit-doors in public buildings. 1964J. S. Scott Dict. Building 223 Panic bolt, a door bolt often used at the double exit doors of theatres. It is opened by pressure from inside on to a horizontal bar within the door at waist height. 1972Times 28 Dec. 1/8 London fire brigade checked the new arrangements last night and said that ‘panic bolts’ on the inside complied with regulations.
1955Amer. Speech XXX. 117 Hit the *panic button, panic, get excited. 1956Ibid. XXXI. 240 Discussion with several pilots..reveals at least four buttons or switches, each one of which may be referred to as the ‘panic button’. 1958Ibid. XXXIII. 183 Panic button, the release button on the one-point release harness worn by the smokejumper. When a jumper is hung up in a tree,..he twists a metal knob (the ‘panic button’) on his harness fifteen degrees to the left and hits it. This releases the webbing straps of the harness, and the entire parachute and harness fall off. ‘I hit the panic button and let down about sixty feet.’ 1959Times 9 Mar. 13/4 Hit the panic button, get over-excited. 1962Review & Herald 25 Oct. 24/3 Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, president of the Lutheran Church in America, warned here that the time is coming for world Christian missions ‘to press the panic button’, because Christianity is dying out. 1970Washington Post 30 Sept. D4/5, I haven't thrown the panic button yet and I'm not going to. 1970D. Francis Rat Race iv. 45 Someone in the control tower had pressed the panic button. Fire engines screamed up. 1970Motoring Which? July 113/1 As a last resort, pressing the ‘panic-button’ would ‘dump’ the craft, but could cause damage on a hard surface. 1972T. Ardies This Suitcase viii. 71 The President reacted reasonably enough. He didn't push the panic button... He..ordered a stand-by alert. 1973Listener 15 Feb. 200/3 The panic-button was pressed: foreign-exchange markets slammed their doors.
1974Scottish Daily Express 14 Oct. 1/6 But one grocery chain manager stressed last night there was no immediate need for customers to *panic buy as stocks were high and many stores' supplies were still unaffected by the strike. 1974Times 15 Nov. 18/3, I had already panic-bought five gallons of petrol..saving 42p on next week's prices.
1942Washington Post 23 Nov. 11/6 An anti-hoarding regulation for householders..to curb *panic-buying of foods. 1949Sun (Baltimore) 2 Dec. 4/5 There is no question but that panic buying has contributed to the current price rise. 1972Guardian 18 Aug. 13 Concern over the number of mortgages available in the future and fears that selling [houses] could become more difficult have created a flood of panic-selling (which makes a change from panic-buying). 1973Times 7 Dec. 18/8 Panic buying of spirits in the High Street, caused largely by forecasts of the shortage. 1974Guardian 19 Jan. 20/2 Panic-buying would in itself lead to ‘artificial shortages’.
1873Burton Hist. Scot. VI. lxxii. 301 The old *panic-cry about a Scots invasion.
1806–7J. Beresford Miseries Hum. Life (1826) ii. xviii, When he has..scattered your whole party in a *panic-flight.
1877Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 227 This produced a *panic-like consternation.
1793H. Walpole Lett., to Miss Berrys 7 Oct. (1846) VI. 494 The *panic-master-general.
1849Cobden Speeches 8 Those wicked alarmists and *panic-mongers whom I will never forgive. 1894Ld. Wolseley Life Marlborough II. 14 Sunderland succeeded in pursuading James that Lewis XIV's warnings were those of the ‘panic-monger’.
1886Times 30 Mar. 12/1 This *panicmongering has had the effect of suggesting strikes and rioting.
1883G. Meredith Poems & Lyrics 143 How bold when skies are blue; When black winds churn the deep, how *panic-pale.
1919Boy's Own Paper XLI. ix. 456/2 The ‘Farnborough’..disembarked a ‘*panic party’..to pretend that the officers and crew were abandoning their ship. 1929Papers Mich. Acad. Sci., Arts, & Lett. X. 313 Panic party, a feigned demonstration of alarm or panic on board a decoy (mystery) ship in order to lure the commander of a submarine alongside. When a mystery ship was torpedoed, the panic party took to the boats, apparently abandoning the vessel, but always leaving on board another crew to man the guns and finish the submarine if it came near enough. 1929F. C. Bowen Sea Slang 100 Panic Party, the men whose job it was to leave a Decoy Ship (Q-boat) in disorder when a German submarine opened fire. 1932‘N. Shute’ Lonely Road vii. 144 They shelled the panic party in the boats. 1943Baker Dict. Austral. Slang (ed. 3) 57 Panic party, any rush move (Digger slang).
1961in Partridge Dict. Slang Suppl. 1213/1 :*Panic stations, be at, to be prepared for the worst. 1963‘J. Prescot’ Case for Hearing iii. 53 Someone has been into Greenwood's again..and got away with another three hundred... The police seem to be at panic stations about it. 1972A. Draper Death Penalty xviii. 113 Let's face it, Caleb, you'll be the first to run to panic stations.
1804M. Hays Harry Clinton xxxii. 199 A ladder was..speedily brought, the *panic-stricken family assisted to descend, and charitably conducted to a neighbouring inn. 1814Southey Roderick xxv, The Moors, confused and captainless, And panic-stricken, vainly seek to escape The inevitable fate. 1859W. Collins Q. of Hearts (1875) 19 Owen and I looked at one another in panic-stricken silence. 1904[see Dixie2 1 b]. 1977M. T. Bloom 13th Man iii. 39 They both turned their faces to me and the car and they looked panic-stricken, stuck in place.
1798Lady Hunter in Jrnl. Sir M. Hunter (1894) 122 Our formidable appearance *panic-struck them, and they were moving off. 1898Henderson Stonewall Jackson I. xi. 448 They need only a movement on the flank to panic-strike them.
1851H. Melville Moby Dick III. vii. 56 Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities; so that the *panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness. 1934R. Campbell Broken Record ii. 46 A senseless, dutiful exposure of panic-striking and depressing facts is worse than any amount of mischievous lying.
1776J. Thacher Mil. Jrnl. (1823) 70 [Washington] made every effort to rally them, but without success; they were so *panic struck that even the shadow of an enemy seemed to increase their precipitate flight. 1835J. E. Alexander Sk. Portugal vi. 139 The Miguelites at last became panic-struck. 1848Buckley Iliad 130 A panic-struck and turbulent council.
1791Cowper Iliad xvi. 983 *Panic-stunn'd he stood.
Hence ˈpanicful a., ‘full of panic, fearful’.
1846Worcester, Panicful (cites C. B. Brown).
▪ III. ˈpanic, v.
[f. panic n.2]
1. trans. To affect with panic.
1827Hood Hero & Leander xlii, The crew..Struck pale and panick'd by the billows' roar. 1917‘Contact’ Airman's Outings 184 Nothing seems to panic the Boche more than a sudden swoop by a low⁓flying aeroplane. 1919H. L. Wilson Ma Pettengill iv. 127 He was sure going to annoy Ben from time to time, even if he didn't panic him much. 1932Kipling Limits & Renewals 169 Then I'd come round the corner and hailed him, and that panicked him. 1932New Yorker 4 June 46/1 Gough..had a violence and fervor on the platform which packed them and panicked them everywhere. 1957Economist 30 Nov. 795/1 The markets are healthy and not likely to be panicked into headlong fall. 1966A. Sachs Jail Diary xxi. 189 That will panic the Whites in South Africa even further. 1971Daily Tel. 2 Nov. 2/5 A radio dramatisation of H. G. Wells's ‘War of the Worlds’..panicked thousands throughout America in 1938. 1974‘M. Innes’ Appleby's Other Story xi. 93 At least it panicked her. She came..to tell me a pack of lies. 1975Daily Tel. 1 May 13/6 When I received a tax demand asking for {pstlg}600 by Tuesday it panics me completely. 1977Time 23 May 24/3 The Defense Secretary is by no means panicked.
2. intr. To get into a panic, to lose one's head.
1910Kipling Diversity of Creatures (1917) 310 Jules was, so to speak, panicking in a water-tight flat through his unfortunate lack of language. 1921‘Sapper’ Man in Ratcatcher 30 For a few agonizing seconds..she panicked; then..she pulled herself together and tried to stop him. 1924M. Newman Consummation v. xxii. 240 They panicked one night, started rapid fire and killed two of their own men. 1930J. Cannan No Walls of Jasper 196 Martin helped Phyl to unpack. All at once she panicked, rummaging wildly among the paper in the tea-basket and saying, ‘Good heavens, Martin! there's no sugar for his tea!’ 1946M. Peake Titus Groan 371 Swelter,..thinking the thin man to have panicked, pursued him. 1958N. Marsh Singing in Shrouds (1959) xi. 235 I'd had one or two drinks over the eight and I suppose that's why I panicked. 1971Radio Times 4 Nov. 72/4 Their headmaster..rather panicked at the word ‘drug’. 1975P. Somerville-Large Couch of Earth iii. 48, I thought you might have panicked and hared off.
Hence ˈpanicked ppl. a., stricken with panic; also fig.
1916G. Frankau Guns 15 His panicked watchers spy us, a droning threat in the void. 1920E. Sitwell Wooden Pegasus 107 The light falls like a rain of panick'd leaves Through the gold heart of eves. 1978R. Lewis Uncertain Sound iii. 80 With a sense of panicked claustrophobia I felt I had to get out of the office. |