hectic

• hectick (obsolete)
• hectical (archaic)

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, intransitive be in a certain state”).

hectic (comparative more hectic, superlative most hectic)

1. (obsolete) Pertaining to bodily reactions characterised by flushed or dry skin.

   hectic fever; a hectic patient

   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, volume 3, chapter 1

     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 [...]

2. Very busy with activity and confusion; feverish.

   The city center is so hectic at 8 in the morning that I go to work an hour beforehand to avoid the crowds

• feverish

• hectically
• hecticity
• hectivity

hectic (plural hectics)

1. (obsolete) A hectic fever.
   • c. 1600,, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 3,

     […] Do it, England;

     For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

     And thou must cure me.

2. (obsolete) A flush like one produced by such a fever.
   • 1768, Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, London: T. Becket & P.A. De Hondt, Volume 1, p. 17,

     The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass’d across his cheek, but could not tarry […]

   • 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, II.147:

     For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek / A purple hectic played like dying day / On the snow-tops of distant hills […]

   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     an angry hectic in each cheek, a fierce flirt of her fan, and two or three short sniffs that betokened mischief

• hectic in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• hectic in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.