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.

Spook vs Panic - What's the difference?

spook | panic |

As a noun spook

is a spirit returning to haunt a place.

As a verb spook

is to scare or frighten.

As an adjective panic is

pandean.

spook

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A spirit returning to haunt a place.
  • The visit to the old cemetery brought scary visions of spooks and ghosts.
  • A ghost or an apparition.
  • The building was haunted by a couple of spooks .
  • A hobgoblin.
  • (espionage) A spy.
  • * 2009 , "Spies like them", BBC News Magazine (online), 24 July 2009:
  • From Ian Fleming to John Le Carre - authors have long been fascinated by the world of espionage. But, asks the BBC’s Gordon Corera, what do real life spooks make of fictional spies?
  • * 2012 , The Economist, Oct 13th 2012, Huawei and ZTE: Put on hold
  • The congressional study frets that Huawei’s and ZTE’s products could be used as Trojan horses by Chinese spooks .
  • A scare or fright.
  • The big spider gave me a spook .
  • (dated, pejorative) A black person.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To scare or frighten.
  • To startle or frighten an animal
  • The movement in the bushes spooked the deer and they ran.

    Derived terms

    * spookiness * spookish * spook out * spooky

    See also

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    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, ----