pica \PAHY-kuh\, noun:
1. An abnormal appetite or craving for substances that are not fit to eat.
2. A 12-point type of a size between small pica and English.
3. A brown-speckled European lark, Alauda arvensis, famed for its melodious song.
4. A 12-point type, widely used for typewriters, having 10 characters to the inch.
I wonder if it could be...if it could be pica, ice pica? I wonder whether his ice chewing could be a manifestation of a subconscious drive to chew ice due to...what?
-- Daniel Jenner, Decisions of Love
There is a pica or false appetite in many intelligences; they take to odd fancies in place of wholesome truth, as girls gnaw at chalk and charcoal.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Medical Essays
Pica is from the Middle Latin meaning "magpie," probably translating Greek kissa, "magpie, jay," also "false appetite."
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