Panikos

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A sudden overwhelming fear that spreads quickly among people ; a Greek personal name often used for men ; a reference to something related to panicked states in psychology or literature
2. An abrupt mass terror causing irrational behavior ; a given name in Greek culture for males ; terminology describing acute fear responses in medical or social contexts
3. Intense, contagious fright influencing a group ; a common male first name in Greece ; language denoting states of collective or individual panic

Etymology: Pan, the goat-legged god of Greek shepherds and wild places, was believed to strike travellers with sudden, groundless fear. The Greek adjective "panikos" meant "of Pan" or "caused by Pan," and it was paired with "deima," meaning fear, to describe a terror with no visible cause. Herodotus reports that Pan appeared to the runner Pheidippides before the Battle of Marathon, and the Athenians afterwards built him a shrine below the Acropolis. The word reached English through French, where "panique" kept the god's association with a crowd seized by unreasoning alarm. The sense of a stampede or flight that spreads through a group has stayed close to that origin. Later writers borrowed the term for the acute fear responses of individuals, so a shepherd god's trick now names both a mob's flight and a racing heart.

Synonyms: panic, fear, terror, alarm, anxiety

Antonyms: calm, composure, peace, serenity, tranquility