Sic
Origin 1
From Latin sīc ("thus, so").
Full definition of sic
Adverb
sic
- Thus; thus written; .
- 1971, H. E. Wilkie Young and Elie Khadourie, 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 468Bolinger, Dwight (1977) 'Pronoun and repeated nouns.' Lingua18:1-34 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 127Jim '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...sic
- 2012, Milton J. Bates, The Bark River Chronicles: Stories from a Wisconsin Watershed, Wisconsin Historical Society (ISBN 9780870206047), page 271whole bussiness: Quoted sic in George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers ( New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1945)
Derived terms
Usage notes
Sic is frequently used to indicate that an error of spelling, grammar, or logic has been quoted faithfully; for instance, quoting the :
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 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", the phrase shouted by after assassinating
Verb
- To mark with a bracketed sic."sic, adv. (and n.)" Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition 1989. Oxford University Press.E. Belfort Bax wrote "... the modern reviewer's taste is not really shocked by half the things he sics or otherwise castigates."E. Belfort Bax. On Some Forms of Modern Cant. Commonweal: 7 May 1887. Marxists’ Internet Archive: 14 Jan. 2006
Origin 2
Variant of seek.
Alternative forms
Verb
Usage notes
The sense of "set upon" is most commonly used as an imperative, in a command to an animal.