sic
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
Learned borrowing from Latin sīc (“thus, so”).
Adverb
sic (not comparable)
- Thus; as written; used to indicate, for example, that text is being quoted as it is from the source.
- 1909 January 28, H. E. Wilkie Young, “Notes on the City of Mosul” (despatch No. 4), in Foreign Office, volume 195, number 2308; quoted in Elie Khadouri[e], “Mosul in 1909”, in Middle Eastern Studies, volume 7, number 2, 1971, →JSTOR, page 229:
- When it is all over they merge and go in a body to visit [...] the Telegraph Office – with plausible expressions of regret and excuses for the mob ‘which’ they say ‘is deplorably ignorant and will not be restrained when its feelings are strongly moved’ – sic, the fact being that the mob’s feelings will never be ‘moved’ unless it is by one of them.
- 2006, Christina Scull with Wayne G. Hammond, JRR Tolkien companion & guide, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN:
- Joseph Wright, his predecessor in the chair, called him ‘a firstrate Scholar and a kind of man who will easily make friends’ at Oxford (quoted, sic, in E.M. Wright, The Life of Joseph Wright (1932), p. 483).
- 2010, Paul Booth, Digital Fandom: New Media Studies, Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 127:
- Jim’s Interests: General: Working out, hanging out at the local bars, expanding my mind, eating Tuna Sandwhiches...or so I’m told and poker... Television: ... this show that’s on Thuresday nights at 8 :30pm... I can’t place the name of it but it has this crazy interview style thing...[all sic]
- 2012, Milton J. Bates, The Bark River Chronicles: Stories from a Wisconsin Watershed, Wisconsin Historical Society, →ISBN, page 271:
- whole bussiness: Quoted sic in George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1945)
- (by extension) Used in the manner of scare quotes
- 1979 December 29, Vern Hall-Smith, “Fundamentalists March”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 23, page 5:
- In the past few months, we in Upstate N.Y. have been subjected to fire bombings, firings, verbal and physical harassment, etc. The list goes on and on. These (sic) Christians are calling for a million marchers and may very well get that many.
Usage notes
Sic is frequently used to indicate that an error or apparent error of spelling, grammar, or logic has been quoted faithfully; for instance, quoting the U.S. Constitution:
- The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker ...
Sic is often set off from surrounding text by parentheses or brackets, which sometimes enclose additional notes, as:
- 1884, James Grant, Cassell’s old and new Edinburgh, page 99:
- This I may say of her, to which all that saw her will bear record, that her only countenance moved [sic, meaning that its expression alone was touching], although she had not spoken a word […]
Because it is not an abbreviation, it does not require a following period.
Related terms
- sic pro (used to note the error and supply the supposed intended phrasing)
- sic passim (used to indicate that the preceding word, phrase, or term is used in the same manner (or form) throughout the remainder of a text)
- sic transit gloria mundi (fame is temporary; lit. “so passes the glory of the world”)
- sic semper tyrannis (“thus always to tyrants”, and shouted by John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln)
Translations
thus, thus written
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Verb
sic (third-person singular simple present sics, present participle siccing, simple past and past participle sicced)
- To mark with a bracketed sic.[1]
- 1887 May 7, E. Belfort Bax, “On Some Forms of Modern Cant”, in Commonweal:
- The fact is, of course, that the modern reviewer’s taste is not really shocked by half the things he sics or otherwise castigates, but he must find something to say and above all make a slow of purism.
Etymology 2
Variant of seek.
Alternative forms
Verb
sic (third-person singular simple present sics, present participle siccing, simple past and past participle sicced)
- (transitive) To incite an attack by, especially a dog or dogs.
- He sicced his dog on me!
- 1992, Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown, →ISBN:
- Phreaks can max-out 911 systems just by siccing a bunch of computer-modems on them in tandem, dialling them over and over until they clog.
- (transitive) To set upon; to chase; to attack.
- Sic ’em, Mitzi.
Usage notes
- The sense of “set upon” is most commonly used as an imperative, in a command to an animal.
Translations
incite an attack by
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References
- “sic, adv. (and n.)” Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition 1989. Oxford University Press.
See also
- sic bo (etymologically unrelated)
Anagrams
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