pica

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)A disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand.

   “The three most common nonfood picas were eating of strings and rags; feces, vomit, and urine; and paper, cigarettes, and soil.”

2. (countable)A magpie.
3. (uncountable)A size of type between small pica and English, now standardized as 12-point.

   “I had been at Baldwin's before dinner in consequence of a letter from him which showed me that, by using a pica instead of an English letter in printing my book, I might comprise it within such a number of sheets as a guinea-volume should contain […].”

   “The difference to you of treacle on a marble background is scarcely greater than that of printers' ink on newspaper to me. But anything smaller than pica I do not read with comfort, and below long primer I cannot read at all.”

4. (uncountable, usually)A font of this size.
5. (countable)A unit of length equivalent to 12 points, officially ³⁵⁄₈₃ cm (0.166 in) after 1886 but now (computing) ¹⁄₆ in.
6. (countable, uncommon, uncountable)A pie or directory: the book directing Roman Catholic observance of saints' days and other feasts under various calendars.
7. (alt-of, archaic)Archaic form of pika (“small lagomorph”).

   “Most travellers in the Himalaya are familiar with the pretty little Rodents, known as picas, tailless hares, or mouse-hares, which may be seen in the higher regions[…]”

8. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of phenolic impregnated carbon ablator.
9. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of posterior inferior cerebellar artery.