sūci or sūcī́, f. (prob. to be connected with sūtra, syūta &c. fr. √ siv, ‘to sew’, cf. sūkṣma; in [R.] once sūcinā instr.), a needle or any sharp-pointed instrument (e.g. ‘a needle used in surgery’, ‘a magnet’ &c.), [RV.] &c. &c.; the sharp point or tip of anything or any pointed object, [Kāv.]; [Car.]; [BhP.]; a rail or balustrade, [Divyāv.]; a small door-bolt, [L.]; ‘sharp file or column’, a kind of military array (accord. to [Kull.] on [Mn. vii, 187], ‘placing the sharpest and most active soldiers in front’), [Mn.]; [MBh.]; [Kām.]; an index, table of contents (in books printed in India; cf. -pattra below); a triangle formed by the sides of a trapezium produced till they meet, [Col.]; a cone, pyramid, [ib.]; (in astron.) the earth's disc in computing eclipses (or ‘the corrected diameter of the earth’), [Sūryas.]; gesticulation, dramatic action, [L.]; a kind of coitus, [L.]; sight, seeing (= dṛṣṭi), [L.]; m. (only sūci) the son of Niṣāda and a Vaiśyā, [L.] a maker of winnowing baskets &c. (cf. sūnā), [L.]
sūcī—kaṭāha-nyāya m. the rule of the needle and the caldron (a phrase implying that when two things have to be done, one easy and the other difficult, the easier should be done first), [MW.]