Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A printer's unit of type size, equal to 12 points or about 1/6 of an inch.
- n. An equivalent unit of composition measurement used in determining the dimensions of lines, illustrations, or printed pages.
- n. A type size for typewriters, providing ten characters to the inch.
- n. An abnormal craving or appetite for nonfood substances, such as dirt, paint, or clay.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A genus of oscine passerine birds of the family Corvidæ and sub-family Garrulinæ, having an extremely long graduated tail, the nostrils covered with antrorse plumules, and the plumage iridescent black and white; the magpies. The common magpie of Europe is P. rustica, P. caudata, or P. pica. That of America is commonly called
P. hudsonica , but it is scarcely a distinct species. The yellow-billed magpie of California is P. nuttalli. See cut undermagpie . - n. [lowercase] A bird of the genus Pica; a pie; a magpie.
- n. In medicine, a vitiated craving for what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, or coal.
- n. Eccles., same as ordinal, 2 .
- n. An alphabetical catalogue of names and things in rolls and records.
- n. A size of printing-type, about 6 lines to the inch, intermediate between the sizes English (larger) and small-pica (smaller). It is equal to 12 points in the new system of sizes. (See
point , 14 .) The sizes of type respectively called 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-line pica have bodies that are equal to 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 lines of pica. Leads are described by their numerical relation to the pica body, as 6-to-pica or 10-to-pica, according as 6 or 10 set together make a line of pica.
Wiktionary
- n. A vitiated appetite that craves what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, coal, etc.; chthonophagia.
- n. Archaic form of pika. (small rodent)
- n. typography, uncountable A size of type.
- n. typography, countable A unit of measure equivalent to 12 points.
- n. obsolete A Roman Catholic service book; a type of ecclesiastical calendar book.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) The genus that includes the magpies.
- n. (Med.) A vitiated appetite that craves what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, coal, etc.; chthonophagia.
- n. (R. C. Ch.), obsolete A service-book. See Pie.
- n. (Print.) A size of type next larger than small pica, and smaller than English.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a linear unit (1/6 inch) used in printing
- n. an eating disorder, frequent in children, in which non-nutritional objects are eaten persistently
- n. magpies.
Etymologies
- The printing senses are probably from named the obsolete service book, which used this type size (compare canon and brevier) . In turn seemingly from Latin pīca ("magpie"), after the piebald appearance of the typeset page (compare pie ("disordered type")). (Wiktionary)
- Probably from Medieval Latin pīca, list of church services (perhaps from the typeface used to print it).New Latin pīca, from Latin, magpie (from its omnivorous nature). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“That's because, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "pie" - defined as a baked dish topped with and sometimes also surrounded by pastry - may well derive from the Latin word pica, meaning magpie.”
“The new message is sent to the Bot class to create a new robot and associate with it the name pica := is for assignment”
“Children who are iron deficient will eat dirt, a condition known as pica, in an attempt to get what their body needs.”
“UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had a disorder called pica, where they ate things that aren ` t food, like chalk, dirt, batteries, things like that.”
“If you have it, you are going to see these symptoms -- weakness and fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches, difficulty concentrating, irritability, dizziness, ringing in the ears, and something known as pica -- this is a very interesting phenomenon, Paula.”
“The twelfth part of a pica is the unit, called a _point_, by which type bodies are measured.”
Up To Date Business Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.)
“The habit of dirt eating or clay-eating, called pica, is well authenticated in many countries.”
“Some patients have a condition called pica, thought to be caused by a nutritional deficiency, where they ingest rocks, clay, or dirt.”
“Occasionally, when dogs and cats are severely ill, they display a behavior called pica, where they eat unusual items.”
“It is now called pica after the magpies, or Picae, whose diet includes everything eaten by anything or anyone.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pica’.
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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Psychology
stockholm syndrome, stereotype, ergonomics, human-computer in..., prejudice, neo-luddism, stress, trauma, psychopathology, psychotic, neurosis, depression and 180 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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eaters (and eating)
carnivore, detritivore, saprophage, omnivore, herbivore, nectarivore, frugivore, oophagy, durophagy, feeding frenzy, trophallaxis, ruminate and 33 more...
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diseases that make lovely baby girl's...
usually i try to restrict this to sexually transmitted diseases, but some of the others are just so musical. Syphilis, it should be noted, would make a lovely boy's name, but that is outside the sc...
gonorrhea, chlamydia, roseola, rubella, angina, atrophy, candida, cholera, jaundice, palsy, leukemia, alopecia and 50 more...
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Surprising four-letter words
I imagine most of these will be Anglo-Saxon, not likely to crop up in the average day's conversation, and thus excellent for Scrabble. ("most" is too common, likewise "will" and even "crop", in an...
blet, quim, clit, buff, sire, wiki, blog, loam, waft, heft, mare, lilt and 68 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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Useful
parkour, diegetic, callipygian, dasypygal, hypnagogic, hypnopompic, antejentacular, postprandial, perspicuity, perspicacity, föhn, traceur and 115 more...
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kimo2000's Words
pakalolo, miliated, voodoo, vindaloo, hacienda, acquiesce, addlepated, olio, akimbo, apropos, oogenesis, arugula and 181 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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the_grene_kni3t's Words
acuarela, sesquipedalian, capital, métier, chap, cove, guv, guv'nor, ratiocination, transatlantique, ineffable, aural and 142 more...
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corpus medicorum
words describing medical conditions
decubitus, kernicterus, foetor, paroxysm, tarsorrhaphy, balanitis, porphyria, arcus senilis, coitus interruptus, in extremis, la belle indiffer..., xanthelasma and 184 more...
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sick
"Sick" is probably not the right word, but this is where I put diseases, problems and abnormalities until I find a better way to sort them.
atavism, pareidolia, apophenia, echolalia, glossolalia, alogia, dysthymia, euthymia, synesthesia, Stendhal syndrome, cryptomnesia, analgesia and 356 more...
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bertilak's Words
antidisestablishm..., feldercarb, wainscoting, eleemosynary, oxymoron, fuliginous, libration, lammergeier, saxifrage, ichor, lambent, smaragdine and 414 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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