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American Dictionary of the English Language

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Pica


PI'CA, noun In ornithology, the pie or mag-pie, a species of Corvus.

1. In medicine, a vitiated appetite which makes the patient crave what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, coal, etc.

2. A printing type of a large size; probably named from litera picata, a great black letter at the beginning of some new order in the liturgy; hence,

3. pica pye or pie, formerly an ordinary, a table or directory for devotional services; also, an alphabetical catalogue of names and things in rolls and records.

Pica marina, the sea-pye, ostralegus, or oyster-catcher; an aquatic fowl of the genus Haematopus. This fowl feeds on oysters, limpets and marine insects.