Ciconia

(1) A word meaning literally “a stork,” but also applied to a mimic gesture expressive of ridicule or contempt, produced by bending the forefinger into the form of a stork's neck, and pointing it towards the person ridiculed with a rapid motion of the two top joints up and down (Pers.i. 58, with the commentators; Hieron. Epist. 125, 18).

(2) A contrivance employed by farmers to test a labourer's work in spade husbandry, and prove if all his trenches were dug to a uniform and proper width and depth. It consisted of an upright, with a cross-bar affixed to it, at right angles, like the letter T invèrted, so that the long branch measured the depth, and the two shorter arms the width and evenness of the trench (Colum. iii. 13, 11).