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

When I recovered consciousness, I found that my head had been shaved, and that the cicatrice of my old wound was occasionally very painful.

From The Portent & Other Stories by MacDonald, George

He looked full into Grey's face, and Grey looked full into his; and as he looked the great cicatrice seemed to open itself and to become purple with fresh blood stains.

From Can You Forgive Her? by Trollope, Anthony

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)

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

Related Words

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