cicatrice

American

[sik-uh-tris, -trees] / ˈsɪk ə trɪs, -tris /

noun

cicatrix.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

cicatrices

plural

Explanation

A cicatrice is a scar, the mark left on your skin when a cut, scrape, or burn has started to heal. If you wipe out on your bike you might end up, weeks later, with a cicatrice on your knee. It's much more common to use the word scar, but you can also use cicatrice, or cicatrix, as it's also spelled. Often a cicatrice will fade over time, as the initial wound completes the healing process, but sometimes a cicatrice can stick around for the rest of your life as a reminder of your youthful skateboard adventures. Cicatrice comes from the Latin cicatrix, "scar."

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

For it was the body of his friend, John St. Helen, beyond peradventure?a hooplike scar over the eye, a neck cicatrice, an old leg fracture, a crooked thumb.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is usually, indeed, the minor poetry of an age which keeps most distinctly the "cicatrice and capable impressure" of a passing literary fashion.

From A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

The fellow carried a long cicatrice on his left cheek.

From Boy Scouts on Motorcycles With the Flying Squadron by Ralphson, G. Harvey (George Harvey)

For many years a long white cicatrice recorded the fact in my right hand.

From Tracks of a Rolling Stone by Coke, Henry J. (Henry John)

He was slashed with a wide cicatrice of livid scar tissue from one cheekbone across his nose and down to the button of his jaw on the other side.

From Valley of the Croen by Tarbell, Lee

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023