panicked

1. 1
   adjective

   In a state of sudden, overwhelming fear; experiencing panic.

   A panicked passenger started shouting that the boat was sinking.

   His voice grew more panicked with every unanswered call.

   Similarfrantic, terrified, frightened, alarmed, hysterical

   Oppositecalm, composed, unruffled, collected

   Note

   A participle that has become a true adjective, and grading is the test: it takes more panicked and most panicked, which a plain verb form cannot. It sits before a noun (a panicked caller) or after a linking verb, as in Susan Wilson's One Good Dog (2010): "I really wasn't panicked." Add an agent, as in panicked by the news, and the line back to the past participle blurs.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of panic.

   Investors panicked and sold their shares within minutes.

   She panicked when she couldn't find her passport at the gate.

   Note

   Spelling is the first thing to watch: a k joins panic before the ending, so the c keeps its hard sound in panicked rather than paniced. One form serves every use of the verb, intransitive (the crowd panicked) and transitive (the rumor panicked investors), and it reaches computing too, where a crashed system is said to have panicked. Before a noun it shades into the adjective meaning 'frightened'.

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