What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Flabbergast vs Panic - What's the difference?

flabbergast | panic |

As a verb flabbergast

is to overwhelm with bewilderment; to stun, confound or amaze, especially with ludicrous affect{{reference-book.

As a noun flabbergast

is (uncountable) overwhelming surprise, confusion or shock{{reference-book.

As an adjective panic is

pandean.

flabbergast

English

Verb

  • To overwhelm with bewilderment; to stun, confound or amaze, especially with ludicrous affect.{{reference-book
    • , editor = William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin Eli Smith (Eds.) , year = 1897 , title = The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Dictionary , url = http://books.google.com/books?id=XAJPAAAAYAAJ&dq=The+Century+Dictionary+and+Cyclopedia:+Dictionary&source=gbs_navlinks_s , pages = 2245 , publisher = Century }} {{reference-book , editor = Joseph Wright (Ed.) , year = 1900 , title = The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect , url = http://books.google.com/books?id=90MOAQAAMAAJ&dq=flabbergasting&source=gbs_navlinks_s , pages = 376 , publisher = H. Frowde }}
    He was flabbergasted to find that his work had been done for him before he began.
    Her stupidity flabbergasts me, and I have to force myself to keep a straight face while she explains her beliefs.
    I love to flabbergast the little-minded by shattering their preconceptions about my nationality and gender.
    The oddity of the situation was so flabbergasting I couldn't react in time for anyone to see it.
  • * 1772. Edmund Burke. The Annual Register, Dec. 15, 1772 . " On New Words". Longmans, Green. page 191.
    • Now we are flabbergasted and bored from morning to night — in the senate, at Cox's museum, at Ranelagh, and even at church.
  • * 1861. Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Insulted and Injured . Kessinger Publishing. page 258.
    • Well, some degree of the same pleasure may be experienced when one flabbergasts some romantic Schiller, by putting out one's tongue at him when he least expects it.
  • * 1926. Austin Harrison. Frederic Harrison: Thoughts and Memories . W. Heinemann. page 189.
    • For instance, I could offend, shock, annoy, distress and flabbergast''' your father utterly in five minutes, but the more I tried to offend, shock, distress or '''flabbergast Henry James, the more disinterestedly sympathetic he would appear.
  • * 1956. John Thomas Flynn. The Roosevelt Myth . Ludwig von Mises Institute. page 50.
    • He loved to flabbergast his associates by announcing some startling new policy without consulting any of them.
  • * 2008. Harry Turtledove. The United States of Atlantis . Penguin. page 240.
    • "The idea ''may'' surprise you, but I intend that it ''shall'' flabbergast''' the poor foolish Englishmen mured up behind those pine and redwood logs. '''Flabbergast 'em, I say!"

    Quotations

    * (English Citations of "flabbergast")

    Derived terms

    * flabbergasting * flabbergastingly

    Alternative forms

    * flabagast * flabaghast * flabbergaster * flabberghast * flabergast

    Synonyms

    * amaze * astound * astonish * astony * awe * baffle * bewilder * bowl over * dazzle * dumbfound * flabagast * floor * nonplus * shock * stagger * startle * stun * stupefy * take aback * unnerve See

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (uncountable) Overwhelming surprise, confusion or shock.{{reference-book
    • , last = Green , first = Jonathan , year = 2005 , title = Cassell's Dictionary of Slang , url = http://books.google.com/books?id=5GpLcC4a5fAC&dq=flabbergast&source=gbs_navlinks_ss , pages = 511 , publisher = Sterling Publishing Company }}
    When I saw my house on fire, the flabbergast overcame me and I just stood and stared, too shocked to comprehend what I was seeing.
    His flabbergast was so great he couldn't even come up with a plausible answer.
  • * 1868. Oliver Optic's magazine: Our boys and girls, Volumes 3-4 . Lee and Shepard. page 117.
    • Then quit your flabbergast , and talk in plain English.
  • * 2000. James Carlos Blake. Red Grass River: A Legend . HarperCollins. page 52.
    • Bob's big-eyed flabbergast struck him as comic and he laughed and said, “Lying sack, hey?”
  • (countable) An awkward person.{{reference-book
    • , last = Green , first = Jonathan , year = 2005 , title = Cassell's Dictionary of Slang , url = http://books.google.com/books?id=5GpLcC4a5fAC&dq=flabbergast&source=gbs_navlinks_ss , pages = 511 , publisher = Sterling Publishing Company }}

    Quotations

    * (English Citations of "flabbergast")

    Synonyms

    * and (overwhelming surprise or shock) astonishment, astoundedness, awe, flabbergastment, shock, stupefaction, surprise * (an awkward person) dork, dweeb, geek, flabagast

    Alternative forms

    * flabagast * flabaghast * flabbergaster * flabbergastation * flabbergastment * flabberghast * flabergast

    References

    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.

    • Related terms

    * panicky

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) (lena) panicum.

    Noun

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