panico

panico¹ millet

Etymology tree of panico¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin panicum

Italian panico

From the same root · panico¹

English panic ← panicum

Pronunciation

• /paˈni.ko/^[1]

Forms

panico m (plural (rare) panichi)^[1]

Etymology

The millet is inherited from Latin pānīcum (“Italian millet”), a derivative of pānus (“ear of millet”), named, Nocentini thinks, for its spindle shape.^[2][3][4][1] DELI thinks that noun may be the same as the word for a weaver's thread or bobbin, and Wiktionary also considers pānis (“bread”) as the base.^[2][1][5]

The Latin word is pan-Romance, though in many places replaced by derivatives such as panicium.^[6] It survives as French panic and Romanian părinc, and was borrowed into Old High German pfenih, the source of German Fench.^[3][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Garzo, about 1225, in a proverb comparing flatterers of a friend to sparrows at the millet (come passere al panico).^[2][9] Nocentini dates the word to 1240.^[3] The Latin of Lombard-period documents has panicum in 809 and 986.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Tuscan documents of the 13th and 14th centuries record fields sown with millet and payments in it.^[9] It was long food for people as well as for birds, and the place name Panicale, recorded in 1029, probably first meant a millet field.^[10] Followed by an adjective or a noun (panico bastardo, panico di Spagna) the name is given to related grasses.^[6][4]

Panicato (before 1597, Soderini) describes beef or pork whose muscles seem full of millet grains because of cysticerci, and panicatura (1922) the disease.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 809 – Panicum appears in a Medieval Latin document of the Lombard period.^[6]
• c. 1225 – Garzo uses panico for millet.^[2]
• Before 1597 – Soderini uses panicato of diseased meat.^[2]
• 1922 – Panicatura appears in the Zingarelli dictionary.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) foxtail millet (Setaria italica), an annual grass like millet with a compact panicle.^[4][11][12]
2. Its seed, used as birdseed: Ogni mattina do il panico al canarino.^[4][11]
3. A name of various grasses of the genus Panicum.^[4][13]

Word family

• panicato
• panicatura
• panicale
• panicastrella

panico² panic

Pronunciation

• /ˈpa.ni.ko/^[1]

Forms

panico m (plural panici)^[1]

Etymology

Panic is borrowed from French panique, recorded as an adjective in the 15th century and as a noun in 1836, from Ancient Greek πανικός (panikós, “of Pan”), the adjective of Πάν (Pán), the god of wild nature.^[2][3][1] The Greek phrase was πανικὸν δεῖμα (panikòn deîma, “panic fear”): in myth Pan frightened travellers in lonely places with his inhuman cries.^[3][6] GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and the GDLI treat it as a learned word from Latin panicus, the Latin form of the Greek adjective.^[4][14][15] The same French word gave Spanish pánico.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Baccio Baldini in 1565, as an adjective in timor panico, a sudden fear without apparent cause.^[2][4][12]

Semantic evolution

The noun took longer: Rigutini and Fanfani in 1875 called il panico entrò nell'esercito a strange usage, and purists censured it.^[2] Today it is the usual word for sudden uncontrollable fear, individual or collective, and in psychology an attacco di panico is a panic attack.^[4][12]

D'Annunzio (1894) gave the adjective a new sense, “of nature as a direct manifestation of the divine”, in phrases such as ora panica;^[2][3] Panzini noted in 1935 that it was among the adjectives most used by the aesthetes of the period, and panismo (1915–1917) named that feeling.^[2][3] In young people's slang da panico means “amazing”.^[14]

Timeline

• 1565 – Baccio Baldini uses pànico as an adjective.^[2]
• 1875 – Rigutini and Fanfani note the use as a noun.^[2]
• 1894 – D'Annunzio uses panico of nature as divine.^[2]
• Before 1917 – Giovanni Boine uses panismo.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. panic, a sudden fear that overwhelms reason and leads to flight or rash acts: Quando è mancata la luce, molti sono stati presi dal panico.^[4][14][12]
2. Collective alarm spread by frightening news.^[4][11][13]
3. (psychology) An acute attack of anxiety, as in attacco di panico.^[14][12]

Adjective

1. (mythology) Of the god Pan, as in timor panico.^[4][12][13]
2. (literary) Of nature felt as a living, divine force: poesia panica.^[4][14][11]

Word family

• panismo
• antipanico