n. [ Cf. F. pic. ] A Turkish cloth measure, varying from 18 to 28 inches. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. pica a pie, magpie; in sense 3 prob. named from some resemblance to the colors of the magpie. Cf. Pie magpie. ] 1. (Zool.) The genus that includes the magpies. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Med.) A vitiated appetite that craves what is unfit for food, such as clay, chalk, ashes, coal, etc.; chthonophagia.
Syn. -- allotriophagy. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (R. C. Ch.) A service-book. See Pie. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

4. (Print.) A size of type next larger than small pica, and smaller than English. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ This line is printed in pica [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Pica is twice the size of nonpareil, and is used as a standard of measurement in casting leads, cutting rules, etc., and also as a standard by which to designate several larger kinds of type, as double pica, two-line pica, four-line pica, and the like. [ 1913 Webster ]

Small pica (Print.), a size of type next larger than long primer, and smaller than pica. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ This line is printed in small pica [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ Sp. ] A horseman armed with a lance, who in a bullfight receives the first attack of the bull, and excites him by picking him without attempting to kill him. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. pix, picis, pitch + amarus bitter. ] (Chem.) An oily liquid hydrocarbon extracted from the creosote of beechwood tar. It consists essentially of certain derivatives of pyrogallol. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) The finfoot. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Eccl. Hist.) One of a sect of Adamites in the fifteenth century; -- so called from one Picard of Flanders. See Adamite. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ F., fr. Sp. picaro rogue. ] Applied to that class of literature in which the principal personage is the Spanish picaro, meaning a rascal, a knave, a rogue, an adventurer. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. pl. [ NL., fr. L. picus a woodpecker. ] (Zool.) An extensive division of birds which includes the woodpeckers, toucans, trogons, hornbills, kingfishers, motmots, rollers, and goatsuckers. By some writers it is made to include also the cuckoos, swifts, and humming birds. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. (Zool.) Of or pertaining to Picariæ. -- n. One of the Picariæ. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Sp. picaron, aug. of picaro roguish, n., a rogue. ] One who plunders; especially, a plunderer of wrecks; a pirate; a corsair; a marauder; a sharper. Sir W. Temple. [ 1913 Webster ]