Etymologically
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panico

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panico1 millet

Pronunciation

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

Usage notes

The stress differs: pànico “panic” but panìco “millet”.[2][4][1] The plural of the millet is panichi, rarely panici.[9][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2747
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  9. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 481
  10. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 734
  11. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  14. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 480