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  1. pica love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A printer's unit of type size, equal to 12 points or about 1/6 of an inch.
  2. n. An equivalent unit of composition measurement used in determining the dimensions of lines, illustrations, or printed pages.
  3. n. A type size for typewriters, providing ten characters to the inch.
  4. n. An abnormal craving or appetite for nonfood substances, such as dirt, paint, or clay.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. 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 under magpie.
  2. n. [lowercase] A bird of the genus Pica; a pie; a magpie.
  3. n. In medicine, a vitiated craving for what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, or coal.
  4. n. Eccles., same as ordinal, 2 .
  5. n. An alphabetical catalogue of names and things in rolls and records.
  6. 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

  1. n. A vitiated appetite that craves what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, coal, etc.; chthonophagia.
  2. n. Archaic form of pika. (small rodent)
  3. n. typography, uncountable A size of type.
  4. n. typography, countable A unit of measure equivalent to 12 points.
  5. n. obsolete A Roman Catholic service book; a type of ecclesiastical calendar book.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Zoöl.) The genus that includes the magpies.
  2. n. (Med.) A vitiated appetite that craves what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, coal, etc.; chthonophagia.
  3. n. (R. C. Ch.), obsolete A service-book. See Pie.
  4. n. (Print.) A size of type next larger than small pica, and smaller than English.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a linear unit (1/6 inch) used in printing
  2. n. an eating disorder, frequent in children, in which non-nutritional objects are eaten persistently
  3. n. magpies.

Etymologies

  1. 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)
  2. 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.”

    News

  • “The new message is sent to the Bot class to create a new robot and associate with it the name pica := is for assignment”

    messages are different in Smalltalk

  • “Children who are iron deficient will eat dirt, a condition known as pica, in an attempt to get what their body needs.”

    Simon & Schuster: The UltraMetabolism Cookbook

  • “UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had a disorder called pica, where they ate things that aren ` t food, like chalk, dirt, batteries, things like that.”

    CNN Transcript Sep 14, 2005

  • “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.”

    CNN Transcript Oct 11, 2002

  • “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.”

    Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine

  • “Some patients have a condition called pica, thought to be caused by a nutritional deficiency, where they ingest rocks, clay, or dirt.”

    Boston.com Top Stories

  • “Occasionally, when dogs and cats are severely ill, they display a behavior called pica, where they eat unusual items.”

    SFGate: Top News Stories

  • “It is now called pica after the magpies, or Picae, whose diet includes everything eaten by anything or anyone.”

    Verbatim: VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XX No 1

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‘pica’ has been looked up 3847 times, loved by 2 people, added to 39 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 8.