Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PI'CA, n.

1. In ornithology, the pie or magpie, a species of Corvus.
2. In medicine, a vitiated appetite which makes the patient crave what is unfit for food, as chalk, ashes, coal, &c.
3. A printing type of a large size; probably named from litera picata, a great black letter at the beginning of some new order in the liturgy; hence,
4. Pica, Pye or pie, formerly an ordinary, a table or directory for devotional services; also, an alphabetical catalogue of names and things in rolls and records. – Encyc. Pica marina, the sea-pye, ostrolegus, or oyster-catcher; a grallatory aquatic fowl of the genus Hæmatopus. This fowl feeds on oysters, limpets and marine insects.