Pi'cĕa, n.

n. [Lat. pica, a pie, magpie.] 1. (Ornith.) The magpie. 2. (Med.) A vitiated appetite which makes the patient crave what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, coal, &c. 3. (Rom. Cath. Church.) An ordinary, a table, or directory for devotional services;—called also pie and pye. 4. (Print.) A kind of type of two sizes, small pica and pica, the former of which is next in size above long primer. This line is printed in pica. This line is printed in small pica. This kind of type was probably so called from litera picata, a great black letter at the beginning of some new order in the liturgy. Pica is used as a standard by which to designate several larger kinds of type, as double pica, two-line pica, or two-lines pica, four-line pica, or four-lines pica, and the like. 5. An alphabetical catalogue of names and things in rolls and records.