Plural form referring to multiple instances or types of colic, which is severe abdominal pain caused by intestinal spasms or gas.
From Greek 'kolon' (colon) with plural '-es' ending. 'Colic' itself entered English in the 14th century from Old French, describing the painful cramping that affects mainly infants and horses.
Babies with colic have kept parents awake for thousands of years—in medieval times people blamed it on the alignment of planets, but now we know it's just intestinal gas and immature digestion, though nobody's really solved the problem.
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