hectic
adjectivenounattested in dialogue
- //ˈhɛktɪk//
Very busy with activity and confusion.
adjective
- 1
figurativeVery busy with activity and confusion.
The city center is so hectic at 8 in the morning that I go to work an hour beforehand to avoid the crowds
Phoenix:It must have been too hectic that night to clean up.
- 2
obsoleteDenoting a type of fever accompanying consumption and similar wasting diseases, characterised by flushed cheeks and dry skin.
hectic fever
- 3
obsoletePertaining to or symptomatic of such a fever.
Ann had a hectic cough, and many unfavourable prognostics […].
She never complained, but sleep and appetite fled from her, a slow fever preyed on her veins, her colour was hectic, and she often wept in secret […].
Etymology
From Middle English etik, ethik, from Old French etique, from Medieval Latin *hecticus, from Ancient Greek ἑκτικός (hektikós, “habitual, hectic, consumptive”), from ἕξις (héxis, “a state or habit of body or of mind, condition”), from ἔχειν (ékhein, “to have, hold, be in a certain state”).
noun
- 1
obsoleteA hectic fever.
[…] Do it England, / For like the Hecticke in my blood he rages, / And thou muſt cure me: […]
- 2
obsoleteA flush like one produced by such a fever.
The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass’d across his cheek, but could not tarry […]
For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek / A purple hectic played like dying day / On the snow-tops of distant hills […]
an angry hectic in each cheek, a fierce flirt of her fan, and two or three short sniffs that betokened mischief
Forms
- plural
- hectics
- comparative
- more hectic
- superlative
- most hectic
hectic · Very busy with activity and confusion.
hector · Sometimes in the form Hector: a blustering, noisy, turbulent…Hector · A Trojan hero in Homer's Iliad.hedge · A thicket of bushes or other shrubbery, especially one…