Word.ws English Dictionary

pica

/ˈpaɪkə//ˈpaɪkə/

pica noun: a disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand. Also the archaic form of pika.

Noun (1)

pica (countable and uncountable, plural picas)

  1. (uncountable, usually) A disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand.
    • The three most common nonfood picas were eating of strings and rags; feces, vomit, and urine; and paper, cigarettes, and soil.1986, George S Baroff, Mental retardation: nature, cause, and management
  2. (countable) A magpie.

Noun (2)

pica (countable and uncountable, plural picas)

  1. (uncountable) A size of type between small pica and English, now standardized as 12-point.
    • I had been at Baldwin's before dinner in consequence of a letter from him which showed me that, by using a pica instead of an English letter in printing my book, I might comprise it within such a number of sheets as a guinea-volume should contain […].1790, James Boswell, edited by Danziger & Brady, Boswell: The Great Biographer, Yale, published 1989, page 30
    • The difference to you of treacle on a marble background is scarcely greater than that of printers' ink on newspaper to me. But anything smaller than pica I do not read with comfort, and below long primer I cannot read at all.1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados
  2. (uncountable, usually) A font of this size.
  3. (countable) A unit of length equivalent to 12 points, officially ³⁵⁄₈₃ cm (0.166 in) after 1886 but now (computing) ¹⁄₆ in.
  4. (uncommon) A pie or directory: the book directing Roman Catholic observance of saints' days and other feasts under various calendars.

Noun (3) capitalized: PICA

PICA (countable and uncountable, plural PICAs)

  1. (abbreviation, space flight) Abbreviation of phenolic impregnated carbon ablator.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of posterior inferior cerebellar artery.

Also used as

pica is also the archaic form of pika.

pica meaning in Indonesian

pica in Indonesian

disorder
pika

Synonyms of pica

All synonyms of pica

Forms of pica

pluralpicas
pluralPICAs

Plural of pica: picas

Origin of pica

Borrowed from Latin pīca (“jay; magpie”). Doublet of pie (“magpie”). * (pathology): From the idea that magpies will eat almost anything.

From Medieval Latin pica (“pica: a service book”), possibly from Latin pīca (“magpie”) after the piebald appearance of the typeset page (cf. pie (“disordered type”)). The relation to the printer's measure is unclear, as no edition of the text in pica type is known. The French pica derives from English rather than vice versa.

Words formed from pica

Phrases with pica

Words that rhyme with pica

Questions about pica

What does pica mean?
Pica means a disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand.
What is pica in Indonesian?
Pica in Indonesian is pika. See Pica meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is pica?
Pica is a noun.
How do you pronounce pica?
Pica is pronounced /ˈpaɪkə/ (UK).
What is the plural of pica?
The plural of pica is picas.

Words near pica in the dictionary

  1. pibroch
  2. pibrochs
  3. pibs
  4. pibutidine
  5. pic
  6. pica
  7. pica stick
  8. pica sticks
  9. Picabian
  10. Picabo
  11. picadill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pica (page history and authors); PICA (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pica.wav, En-us-pica.oga.

Cite this entry: “pica.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pica. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.