topic

• topick (obsolete)

From Latin topica, from Ancient Greek τοπικός (topikós, “pertaining to a place, local, pertaining to a common place, or topic, topical”), from τόπος (tópos, “a place”), of Pre-Greek origin.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɒpɪk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɑpɪk/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɒpɪk
• Hyphenation: top‧ic

topic

1. topical

topic (plural topics)

1. Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.

   A society where a topic cannot be discussed, does not have free speech.

   stick to the topic

   an interesting topic of conversation

   romance is a topic that frequently comes up in conversation

   • 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy.

2. (Internet) Discussion thread.
3. (music) A musical sign intended to suggest a particular style or genre.
   • 2012, Esti Sheinberg, Music Semiotics, page 9:

     In Peircean terms, topics are interpretants: signifieds that become new signifiers in the endless semiotic chain of interpretations.

4. (obsolete) An argument or reason.
   • 1675, John Wilkins, Of the Principle and Duties of Natural Religion:

     contumacious persons, who are not to be fixed by any principles, whom no topics can work upon

5. (obsolete, medicine) An external local application or remedy, such as a plaster, a blister, etc.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:

     Amongst topics or outward medicines none are more precious than baths.

• (area of interest): subject, subject area

• “topic”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “topic”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• cop it, optic, picot