Sick,” in this context, had nothing to do with the word meaning “ill,” but rather was simply a dialectal variant of [...] which used to sometimes carry the connotation of seeking with the intent to attack. (This sense of the word “seek” was used as far back as around AD 1000 in the work, Beowulf.)
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Why We Say "Sic 'em" to Get Dogs to Attackwith the intent to have the dog attack individual(s), since at least the nineteenth century. While this may seem odd given common modern definitions for “sick” or the variant “sic,” at the time this command popped up, it made perfect sense.
“<span>Sick,” in this context, had nothing to do with the word meaning “ill,” but rather was simply a dialectal variant of “seek,” which used to sometimes carry the connotation of seeking with the intent to attack. (This sense of the word “seek” was used as far back as around AD 1000 in the work, Beowulf.)
The first known instance of someone instructing a dog to attack someone using this “sick” command occurred in Johnson J. Hooper’s 1845 Adventures of Capt. Simon Suggs:
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