English

Adverb

sic ‎(not comparable)

1. Thus; thus written; used to indicate, for example, that text is being quoted as it is from the source.
   • 1971, H. E. Wilkie Young and Elie Khadouri[e], Mosul in 1909, in Middle Eastern Studies, volume 7, page 229 (quoted in 2014, William Taylor, Narratives of Identity: The Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of England (ISBN 1443869465), page 207):

     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.

   • 2003, Monika Fludernik, The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction, Routledge (ISBN 9781134872879), page 468

     Bolinger, Dwight (1977) 'Pronoun and repeated nouns.' Lingua18:1-34 [Quoted sic in Toolan 1990. Neither in Lingua 18, nor in the 1977 volume of that journal.]

   • 2006, Christina Scull, Wayne G. Hammond, JRR Tolkien companion & guide, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (ISBN 9780618391028)

     *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 9781433110702), 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 9780870206047), page 271

     whole bussiness: Quoted sic in George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers ( New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1945)

Usage notes

Sic is frequently used to indicate that an 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 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", a quotation attributed to Brutus at the assassination of Caesar. The phrase was shouted in reference by John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln)

Translations

Verb

sic ‎(third-person singular simple present sics, present participle siccing, simple past and past participle sicced)

1. To mark with a bracketed sic.^[1]

   E. Belfort Bax wrote "... the modern reviewer's taste is not really shocked by half the things he sics or otherwise castigates."^[1][2]

Etymology 2

Variant of seek.

Alternative forms

• sick

Verb

sic ‎(third-person singular simple present sics, present participle siccing, simple past and past participle sicced)

1. (transitive) To incite an attack by, especially a dog or dogs.

   He sicced his dog on me!

2. (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

References

1. 1 2 "sic, adv. (and n.)" Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition 1989. Oxford University Press.
2. ↑ E. Belfort Bax. On Some Forms of Modern Cant. Commonweal: 7 May 1887. Marxists’ Internet Archive: 14 Jan. 2006

Anagrams

• cis , CIS
• CSI
• ICS
• sci, sci.

French

Etymology

From Latin sīc ‎(“thus, so”).

Adverb

sic

1. sic

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /siːk/

Etymology

From older sīce or seic, from sī +‎ -c, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- ‎(“this”). See also Latin hic, cis, sī, English he.

Adverb

sīc ‎(not comparable)

1. thus, so, just like that
   • 45 BC, Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, Book II.42

     Ut ager, quamvis fertilis, sine cultura fructuosus esse non potest, sic sine doctrina animus.

     Just as the field, however fertile, without cultivation cannot be fruitful, likewise the soul without education.

2. yet

Derived terms

• sic transit gloria mundi
• sic semper tyrannis

Descendants

Particle

sīc ‎(positive particle)

1. (Medieval Latin) yes

References

• sic in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• sic in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “sic”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.
• Meissner, Carl; Auden, Henry William (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • that is the way of the world; such is life: sic vita hominum est
    
  • the facts are these; the matter stands thus: res ita est, ita (sic) se habet
    
  • convince yourself of this; rest assured on this point: sic habeto
    
  • convince yourself of this; rest assured on this point: sic volo te tibi persuadere
    
  • to represent a thing dramatically: sic exponere aliquid, quasi agatur res (non quasi narretur)
    
  • anger is defined as a passionate desire for revenge: iracundiam sic (ita) definiunt, ut ulciscendi libidinem esse dicant or ut u. libido sit or iracundiam sic definiunt, ulc. libidinem
    
  • I felt quite at home in his house: apud eum sic fui tamquam domi meae (Fam. 13. 69)
    
• sic in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, pre-publication website, 2005-2016
• Andrew L. Sihler (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Lojban

Rafsi

sic

1. rafsi of stici.

Portuguese

Adverb

sic (not comparable)

1. sic (used to indicated that a quoted word has been transcribed exactly as found in the source text)

Scots

Alternative forms

• sich

Adjective

sic ‎(not comparable)

1. such

Pronoun

sic

1. such

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

• zȉc

Etymology

From Upper German Sitz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sît͡s/

Noun

sȉc m ‎(Cyrillic spelling си̏ц)

1. (regional) seat (of a vehicle)

Synonyms

• sjȅdalo

References

• “sic” in Hrvatski jezični portal