origin of the word panic

[NoPinkPanther]

I ran across this semi-poetic elementary page in one of my homeschooled son's Greek literature books, and thought you all might find it as interesting as I did. It was written by John Harris for young children, so bask in its simplicity.

Pan

A faun was a merry little beast with little horns on his head and pointy ears-
half human, half goat - associated with spooky forest sounds.
("In Greece, fauns went by the name of "satyrs.")

Mischevious without really being evil,
fauns liked to dance and prance around having fun.
You usually see them laughing,
playing hide-and-seek in the woods; whatever.
(The French composer Claude Debussy wrote a famous piece about a daydreaming faun. Typical!)

If you see only ONE faun, the faun you see is probably going to be Pan.

Pan was the god of sheep and shepherds.
You often see pictures of him playing on his reed pipes-
panpipes, get it! -- which he invented, no less.

Pan, like most fauns, was a little on the wild side
and liked to jump out from behind a bush or rock
and scare people -Booo!-
which produced that sudden
creepy feeling we call panic.
Yep: that's where the word comes from.

[jitters]

Cool, they call this the ETYMOLOGY of words it's mentioned in the dicionary definition see below.

SYLLABICATION: pan·ic

NOUN: 1. A sudden, overpowering terror, often affecting many people at once. See synonyms at fear. 2. A sudden widespread alarm concerning finances, often resulting in a rush to sell property: a stock-market panic. 3. Slang One that is uproariously funny.

ADJECTIVE: 1. Of, relating to, or resulting from sudden, overwhelming terror: panic flight. 2. Of or resulting from a financial panic: panic selling of securities. 3. often Panic Mythology Of or relating to Pan.

TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: pan·icked, pan·ick·ing, pan·ics
To affect or be affected with panic. See synonyms at frighten.

ETYMOLOGY: From French panique, terrified, from Greek Pnikos, of Pan (a source of terror, as in flocks or herds), groundless (used of fear), from Pn, Pan. See Pan.

OTHER FORMS: panick·y —ADJECTIVE

Duncan