sic

1. not comparableThus; as written; used to indicate, for example, that text is being quoted as it is from the source.

   whole bussiness: Quoted sic in George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1945)

   2012, Milton J. Bates, The Bark River Chronicles: Stories from a Wisconsin Watershed, Wisconsin Historical Society, →ISBN, page 271

   5 more examples

   When it is all over they merge and go in a body to visit [...] the Telegraph Office – with plausible expressions of regret and excuses for the mob ‘which’ they say ‘is deplorably ignorant and will not be restrained when its feelings are strongly moved’ – sic, the fact being that the mob’s feelings will never be ‘moved’ unless it is by one of them.

   1909 January 28, H. E. Wilkie Young, “Notes on the City of Mosul” (despatch No. 4), in Foreign Office, volume 195, number 2308; quoted in Elie Khadouri[e], “Mosul in 1909”, in Middle Eastern Studies, volume 7, number 2, 1971, →JSTOR, page 229

   Bolinger, Dwight (1977) ‘Pronoun and repeated nouns.’ Lingua18:1-34 [Quoted sic in Toolan 1990. Neither in Lingua 18, nor in the 1977 volume of that journal.]

   2003, Monika Fludernik, The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction, Routledge, →ISBN, page 468

   Joseph Wright, his predecessor in the chair, called him ‘a firstrate Scholar and a kind of man who will easily make friends’ at Oxford (quoted, sic, in E.M. Wright, The Life of Joseph Wright (1932), p. 483).

   2006, Christina Scull with Wayne G. Hammond, JRR Tolkien companion & guide, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN

   Jim’s Interests: General: Working out, hanging out at the local bars, expanding my mind, eating Tuna Sandwhiches...or so I’m told and poker... Television: ... this show that’s on Thuresday nights at 8 :30pm... I can’t place the name of it but it has this crazy interview style thing...[all sic]

   2010, Paul Booth, Digital Fandom: New Media Studies, Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 127

   In the posting, Matthews said he wished that, “more blacks [sic] people would look into ancient beliefs of pre Christian Africa.”

   2019 April 12, Paul P. Murphy and Samira Said, “Louisiana arson suspect expressed disgust with Baptist churches on Facebook”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 Nov 2021

2. broadlynot comparableUsed in the manner of scare quotes

   In the past few months, we in Upstate N.Y. have been subjected to fire bombings, firings, verbal and physical harassment, etc. The list goes on and on. These (sic) Christians are calling for a million marchers and may very well get that many.

   1979 December 29, Vern Hall-Smith, “Fundamentalists March”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 23, page 5

present singular third person sics · participle present siccing · participle past sicced · past sicced

1. To mark with a bracketed sic.

   The fact is, of course, that the modern reviewer’s taste is not really shocked by half the things he sics or otherwise castigates, but he must find something to say and above all make a slow of purism.

   1887 May 7, E. Belfort Bax, “On Some Forms of Modern Cant”, in Commonweal

present singular third person sics · participle present siccing · participle past sicced · past sicced · alternative sicc · alternative sick

1. transitiveTo incite an attack by, especially a dog or dogs.

   He sicced his dog on me!

   2 more examples

   Phreaks can max-out 911 systems just by siccing a bunch of computer-modems on them in tandem, dialling them over and over until they clog.

   1992, Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown […] , Bantam Books, →ISBN

   I was interviewing the victims of a harebrained scheme to sic contract killers on an innocent woman

   2019, Brian Merchant, “Click Here to Kill: The dark world of online murder markets”, in Harper’s Magazine, volume 2020, number January

2. transitiveTo set upon; to chase; to attack.

   Sic ’em, Mitzi.

plural SICs

1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of second-in-command.
2. abbreviationinitialismchiefly South CarolinaeducationInitialism of School Improvement Council.