cicatrice

American  

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

noun

plural

cicatrices

1. cicatrix.

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Other 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

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

The fall of pitiful tears, tears from the sweet blue of her guileless eyes, came hissing against the red-hot cicatrice.

From Love's Usuries by Creswicke, Louis

"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

The sword of overwhelming tragedy had stripped off the protecting cicatrice of pride and arrogant resentment and bared the lonely soul beneath, that in this shuddering instant groped wildly for human comfort.

From The Long Lane's Turning by Rives, Hallie Erminie

The cicatrice served also as a mark of mutual recognition, so that the object and plans of the leaguers should never be discussed with others.

From The Philippine Islands by Foreman, John

Related Words

• blister
• crater
• defect
• discoloration
• disfigurement
• flaw
• scab
• wound