Hectic means packed with frantic rushed activity. A hectic week, hectic schedule, things are hectic.
It describes a period rather than a person: a hectic morning, and the person is frantic. It is one of the standard British answers to how are you, meaning busy and slightly out of control. The original medical sense was a persistent fever, particularly in tuberculosis, and hectic flush described the high colour of a consumptive — which is a considerably darker origin than the modern office use suggests.
1adjectivehecticPacked with frantic rushed activity.
“The week before the wedding was hectic, with phone calls, dress fittings and last-minute guests.”
hectic is a quality of rushed activity.
Also accepted in games: busy
Greek hektikos meant habitual, and it named a fever that had become constant. English took the medical word and moved it to a schedule, dropping the illness on the way.
Proto-Indo-European
*seǵʰ-
Ancient Greek
ἑκτικός — habitual, hectic, consumptive
Medieval Latin
*hecticus
Old French
etique
Middle English
etik
English, today
hectic
Built from
From Middle English etik, ethik, from Old French etique, from Medieval Latin hecticus, from Ancient Greek ἑκτικός (“habitual, hectic, consumptive”), from ἕξις (“a state or habit of body or of mind, condition”), from ἔχειν (“to have, hold, be in a certain state”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Adjectives