cicatrice
Americannoun
plural
cicatricesOther Word Forms
- cicatrical adjective
- cicatricial adjective
- noncicatricial adjective
- paracicatricial adjective
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."
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
Nigel turned pale as his eyes rested upon the cicatrice, showing like a whitish seam through the slight coating of blood.
From The Finger of Fate A Romance by Reid, Mayne
“It’s five years ago, at the affair of the Tchanak-Kampo, and here’s a little reminiscence of it;” and, throwing back the sleeve of his right arm, he showed the cicatrice of a great sabre cut.
From Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China During the years 1844-5-6 Volume 2 by Huc, Évariste Régis
"This proves the truth of it!" cried Fandor, pointing to a cicatrice on the back of the neck of the murdered man: it was the clear mark of where an abscess had been.
From Messengers of Evil Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantômas by Souvestre, Pierre
Since 1880, since the administration of President Hayes, the wound has been steadily healing, until it has come to seem no longer a burning sore, but an honourable cicatrice.
From America To-day, Observations and Reflections by Archer, William
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
