sica

See also: Sica and šica

English

Etymology

From Latin sīca.

Noun

sica (plural sicas or sicae)

1. (historical) A curved dagger used in Ancient Roman times, associated with the Thracian and Illyrians, gladiators, and Sicarii.
   • 1996, Richard Ashton, Studies in Ancient Coinage from Turkey, British Inst of Archaeology at:

     [...] representation of a sheathed sickle on two fragments of a limestone plaque from Siristat (Figure 12). The plaque has not survived and only a sketch made by Jüthner records it. The publishers thought it showed a gladiatorial sica […]

   • 2004 April 19, Junius Podrug, Dark Passage, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 302:

     He had been honing the blades of sica daggers when Marie was brought in, work that could only be done in the secrecy of night. The huddle broke up and four Sicarii left, including the man with the nervous eyes.

   • 2016 August 29, Kevin Logan, Actual Love: A Novel Inspired By True Events, Lulu Press, Inc, →ISBN:

     We growled as short sica daggers flashed from the folds of many robes.

Related terms

• Sicarius

Further reading

• “sica”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• SIAC, ICAs, CAIs, ICAS, Saci, CIAs, ACIs, CISA, ACSI, asci, CAIS, ASIC, IACs, saic, SAIC

Italian

Iron sica, first century BCE

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sīca.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsi.ka/
• Rhymes: -ika
• Hyphenation: sì‧ca

Noun

sica f (plural siche)

1. (historical, Ancient Rome) sica

Related terms

• sicario

Further reading

• Sica (arma) on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it
• sica in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Anagrams

• -isca, asci, casi, scia, scia-, scià

Latin

Etymology

Unknown; suggested to be borrowed from Proto-Albanian *tsikā (whence Albanian thikë (“knife”)), perhaps via Illyrian. However, the long ī is problematic, and the borrowing may have in fact been the other way around. Despite matching semantics and superficially similar phonetics, not related to secō (“to cut”). There are competing hypotheses about whether sī̆cī̆lis (“sickle”) is derived from sīca: De Vaan assumes it is, whereas von Wartburg, following Romance evidence that implies short vowels in its first two syllables, treats the word for 'sickle' as a derivative of secō. If von Wartburg is correct, it is necessary to distinguish the noun meaning 'sickle' from a separate noun sīcīlis (“spearhead”) used by Ennius, which is from sīca.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈsiː.ka/, [ˈs̠iːkä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈsi.ka/, [ˈsiːkä]

Noun

sīca f (genitive sīcae); first declension

1. a poniard, a curved dagger
2. the edge of a boar's tusk

   Cum arbore et saxō aprī exacuant dentium sīcās.

   Boars may sharpen the edge of their tusks using tree and stone.

Declension

First-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	sīca	sīcae
genitive	sīcae	sīcārum
dative	sīcae	sīcīs
accusative	sīcam	sīcās
ablative	sīcā	sīcīs
vocative	sīca	sīcae

Derived terms

• sīcārius
• sīcīlis

 

Descendants

• →? Proto-Albanian: *tsikā
  • Albanian: thikë

Further reading

• “sica”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “sica”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sica in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• sica in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to plunge a dagger, knife in some one's heart: sicam, cultrum in corde alicuius defigere (Liv. 1. 58)
    
• “sica”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “sica”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin