word of the day: swivet

The word of the day is swivet:

Etymology:  Origin unknown.

dial. (chiefly U.S.).

A state of agitation; a fluster or panic. Also, a hurry. Freq. in phr. in a swivet. (OED)

"It was meant to be only five thousand words and a straightforward biographical sketch, appearing during the Kennedy-Nixon Presidential campaigns, but the five thousand words seemed formidable to me then.  With only a few days to listen to recordings, make notes, digest files from Time correspondents, read morgue clippings, and skim through several books, I was soon sprawled on the floor at home, surrounded by drifts of undifferentiated paper, and near tears in a catatonic swivet."

 - John McPhee, "Structure: beyond the picnic-table crisis", 14 January 2013 The New Yorker