The corpus record — Latin

sica

dagger

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

De haruspicum responso in P. Clodium in Senatu Habita 3 · 3.99/10k
In L. Catilinam 4 · 3.19/10k
Paradoxa stoicorum ad M. Brutum 1 · 2.32/10k
Commentariolum Petitionis 1 · 2.3/10k
Pro T. Annio Milone 2 · 1.9/10k
Psychomachia 1 · 1.67/10k
Curculio 1 · 1.62/10k
Epidicus 1 · 1.54/10k
C. Caligula 1 · 1.31/10k
De Consolatione ad Marciam 1 · 1.19/10k
In L. Calpurnium Pisonem 1 · 0.92/10k
Contra Symmachum 1 · 0.83/10k

Densest 12 of 23 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. sica — de Vaan

sica 'dagger' [f. a] (Enn>) Derivatives: slcarius 'assassin' (Cic.+); sicilis [f] 'sickle' (Enn>), sicTlicula 'small sickle' (PL), sicTlire 'to go over with a sickle' (Varro+), smtimenta, -drum 'sickle-cuttings' (Cato+). siccus There is no way to connect sic- 'dagger, sickle' with the root sec- 'to cut', nor is there an alternative etymology. The noun may well be a loanword. Bibl.: WH Π: 533, EM 623, IEW 895f. t … — [de Vaan, s.v. sica, p. 575]

2. sīca — Lewis & Short

sīca, ae, f.

I A curved dagger, a poniard, Enn. ap. Paul. ex Fest. p. 336 Müll. (Ann. v. 496 Vahl.); Cic. Cat. 1, 6, 16; 2, 10, 23; cf. id. ib. 2, 1, 1; Suet. Calig. 32; Mart. 3, 16, 2; Val. Max. 3, 2, 12 al.: tum haec cottidiana, sicae, veneni, peculatus, i. e. for stabbing, Cic. N. D. 3, 30, 74: hinc sicae, hinc venena, hinc falsa testamenta nascuntur, id. Off. 3, 8, 36.—

II Transf., the edge of a boar's tusk: cum arbore et saxo apri exacuant dentium sicas, Plin. 18, 1, 1, § 2.—Of wit: sicam ingenii destringentes, Amm. 30, 4, 9.

Where it came from

de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) Treated in de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) s.v. sica (scan pp. 575-576; entry #1627). Root candidates: *siskuV-, *sek-, *sikko-.
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. sica (scan p. 647; entry #10698).

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Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.