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sic

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Pronunciation

sic1 to set a dog on

Etymology

The verb meaning to set a dog on is a dialectal variant of seek,[2][3][4][5][6] first recorded in American English, as “sick” in 1845 and with the spelling “sic” from 1890.[6] Merriam-Webster calls it an alteration of the same verb.[7] The older verb is Middle English sēchen, from Old English sēcan.[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a dog, to set upon or attack an animal, chiefly as a command: 1845, in J. J. Hooper's Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,[2] where the sense "to urge a dog to attack" is also found.[2] Merriam-Webster also dates its first use to 1845.[7]

Semantic evolution

Because it was a command used to urge a dog to attack a person or an animal, the verb came to mean "to cause to pursue".[4] With on or at it was used from the start for setting a dog or another animal on someone, and for inciting a person to attack another.[2][3] From 1914, in Ring Lardner, it was used figuratively of setting a person to work on something, or to follow or pursue someone.[2][3] Both spellings, sic and sick, are still in use, with the past forms sicced or sicked.[7][3]

Timeline

  • 1845 – as sick, of a dog, to attack; to set a dog on someone.[2][6][7]
  • 1890 – the spelling sic is first recorded, in American English.[6]
  • 1914 – figurative, to set a person on a task or on someone's track.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. Of a dog, to attack or chase; usually as a command to a dog: sic 'em![7][2][3]
  2. To urge a dog or a person to attack someone, usually with on: The farmer threatened to sic his dogs on the trespassers.[7][2][3]
  3. To set a person to deal with, follow or pursue someone: The company sicced its lawyers on the blogger.[2][3][7]

sic2 thus, so written

Etymology

The adverb used in quotations is borrowed from Latin sīc (“so, thus”).[2][3][8][7][9] Barnhart thinks its use in English may have been influenced by the same use in French, recorded in 1872.[6][4] Klein explains the Latin word as a contraction of an older sīce, from sī (“if”), originally meaning "so", and the emphatic particle -ce.[10] It is thus related to that conjunction,[7][6][4] to Old English swā and English so,[7][5] and Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *so- (“this, that”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Inserted in a quotation to point out that an odd or wrong form is reproduced exactly as in the original: Merriam-Webster dates its first use to about 1859,[7] and the OED's first quotation is from the preface to Henry Sweet's Second Anglo-Saxon Reader (1887).[2][6]

Semantic evolution

According to Etymonline the word was in regular use in English publications by 1876.[4] From 1889 it was also used as a verb, to mark a quoted word with a sic,[2] and in the 20th century as a noun, an instance of such marking.[3] The phrase sic passim, "so throughout", is used in books to show that a word or spelling appears in the same form all through the text.[11][12] Fowler, quoted by Etymonline, held that it should be used only where a reader would naturally doubt the quotation, and complained that reviewers and controversialists used it as "a neat & compendious form of sneer".[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1859 – first known use, according to Merriam-Webster.[7]
  • 1872 – the same use is recorded in French.[6][4]
  • 1876 – in regular use in English publications.[4]
  • 1887 – first OED quotation, in Henry Sweet's Second Anglo-Saxon Reader.[2][6]
  • 1889 – verb, to mark with sic.[2]
  • mid 20th century – noun, an instance of using sic.[3]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. Thus; so written: put in brackets after a quoted word or passage to show that it is copied exactly, although it looks wrong or odd: The notice read “Strickly (sic) no parking.”[11][7][3][2]
  2. sic passim: so throughout; used to show that a word or spelling occurs in the same form all through a text.[11][12]

Noun

  1. An instance of using sic in a quotation.[3]

Verb

  1. To mark a quoted word or passage with sic.[2]
  • sic passim
  • sic transit gloria mundi
  • sic semper tyrannis
  • seek
  • so
  • such

Usage notes

In Scots and northern English, sic is also a reduced form of such, recorded since the 15th century.[2][3][12] In the dialects of Scotland, northern England and Hampshire, sic or sic-sic was a call to pigs to come to the trough.[13]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ a b c The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
  13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)