pica

plural picas

1. uncountableusuallymedicineA 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

   Synonyms: allotriophagy, chthonophagia, cittosis, geophagy, pique

2. countableA magpie.

plural picas

1. uncountablemediaA size of type between small pica and English, now standardized as 12-point.

   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 [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados

   1 more example

   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

2. uncountableusuallymediaA font of this size.
3. countablemediaA unit of length equivalent to 12 points, officially ³⁵⁄₈₃ cm (0.166 in) after 1886 but now (computing) ¹⁄₆ in.
4. countableuncommonuncountableecclesiasticalA pie or directory: the book directing Roman Catholic observance of saints' days and other feasts under various calendars.

plural picas

1. archaicArchaic form of pika (“small lagomorph”).

   Most travellers in the Himalaya are familiar with the pretty little Rodents, known as picas, tailless hares, or mouse-hares, which may be seen in the higher regions[…]

   1895, Richard Lydekker, The Royal Natural History, volume 3, page 190

plural PICAs

1. abbreviationcountableuncountablespace flightAbbreviation of phenolic impregnated carbon ablator.
2. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountableanatomyInitialism of posterior inferior cerebellar artery.