1530: pica Feb 20, 2019

Following yesterday's post about the unit of 'pica', it should be noted that this is a term used in printing, but also medicine, in which it denotes a tendency to eat non-food items. While it may be considered a serious term insofar as it is jargon for two professions, both of these terms originate from a Latin word for 'magpie'. The reason why this would have the meaning it does in medicine is fairly easy to understand, but in printing this makes less sense at first. However, it is believed that it comes from the appearance of piebald (a word that also comes from 'magpie') appearance of a printed page, compared to hand-written and illustrated ones.
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