freakout
Americannoun
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an act or instance of freaking out.
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a person who freaks out.
verb phrase
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to lose or cause to lose emotional control from extreme excitement, shock, fear, joy, despair, etc..
Seeing the dead body completely freaked him out.
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to enter into or cause a period of irrational behavior or emotional instability, especially under the influence of a drug.
to be freaked out on LSD.
Etymology
Origin of freakout
First recorded in 1965–70; noun use of verb phrase freak out (in the sense “to lose one's emotional control”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Micron Technology shares were on pace to snap a six-session losing streak Friday, with an analyst likening the recent market freakout over memory stocks to last winter’s DeepSeek saga that ultimately proved a blip.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 27, 2026
Rivers’s signing had provoked a freakout over NFL development—Is America’s quarterback shortage this bleak?—but there was something to be said about having someone who’d done this before, many times.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 15, 2025
—The bond market freakout: More worrisome to financial observers was weird, counterintuitive activity in the treasury bond market.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2025
The impetus for this freakout was a bill signed by Walz last year requiring public schools to make menstrual products available to students at no charge.
From Salon • Aug. 8, 2024
“This freakout — that we’re trying to do something unique legally — is just hysterical,” she said.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 23, 2024
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
