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Distress vs Panic - What's the difference?

distress | panic | Related terms |

Distress is a related term of panic.


As a noun distress

is (cause of) discomfort.

As a verb distress

is to cause strain or anxiety to someone.

As an adjective panic is

pandean.

distress

English

Noun

(-)
  • (Cause of) discomfort.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1833 , author=John Trusler , title=The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings , chapter=8 citation , passage=To heighten his distress , he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child, the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be able to surmount.}}
  • Serious danger.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1719 , author=Daniel Defoe , title=Robinson Crusoe , chapter=13 citation , passage=I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress , and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these gun for signals of distress, and to obtain help.}}
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1759 , author=Voltaire , title=Candide , chapter=42 citation , passage=At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress .}}
  • (legal) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
  • (legal) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.
  • * Spenser
  • If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.
  • * Blackstone
  • The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.

    Verb

    (es)
  • To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1827 , author=Stendhal , title=Armance , chapter=31 citation , passage=She respects me, no doubt, but has no longer any passionate feeling for me, and my death will distress her without plunging her in despair.}}
  • (legal) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.
  • *
  • To treat an object, such as an antique, to give it an appearance of age.
  • She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.

    panic

    English

    (wikipedia panic)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) panique, from (etyl) . is the god of woods and fields who was the source of mysterious sounds that caused contagious, groundless fear in herds and crowds, or in people in lonely spots.

    Alternative forms

    * panick (obsolete)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Pertaining to the god Pan.
  • Of fear, fright etc: sudden or overwhelming (attributed by the ancient Greeks to the influence of ).
  • *, Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, pp.57-8:
  • All things were there in a disordered confusion, and in a confused furie, untill such time as by praiers and sacrifices they had appeased the wrath of their Gods. They call it to this day, the Panike terror.
  • * 1978 , (Lawrence Durrell), Livia'', Faber & Faber 1992 (''Avignon Quintet ), p.537:
  • At that moment a flight of birds passed close overhead, and at the whirr of their wings a panic fear seized her.
  • * 1993 , James Michie, trans. Ovid, The Art of Love , Book II:
  • Terrified, he looked down from the skies / At the waves, and panic blackness filled his eyes.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Overpowering fright, often affecting groups of people or animals.
  • *
  • *:She wakened in sharp panic , bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=19 citation , passage=Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.}}
  • *1994 , (Stephen Fry), (The Hippopotamus) Chapter 2
  • *:With a bolt of fright he remembered that there was no bathroom in the Hobhouse Room. He leapt along the corridor in a panic , stopping by the long-case clock at the end where he flattened himself against the wall.
  • Rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of continuing decline in asset prices.
  • *
  • Derived terms
    * panic attack * panic button * panic disorder * panic room

    Verb

  • To feel overwhelming fear.
  • Etymology 2

    (etyl) (lena) panicum.

    Noun

  • (botany) A plant of the genus Panicum .
  • Synonyms
    * panicgrass, ----