Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Picti

The Picts; a people inhabiting the northern part of Britain, who appear to have been either a tribe of the Caledonians, or the same people as the Caledonians, though under another name. They are said to have been called Picti (“painted men”) by the Romans, from their practice of painting their bodies; but scholars now regard the word as the same with the other native terms Pictones, Pictavi, found in Gaul (cf. the French Poitou, Poictiers), and as therefore Keltic. The name, however, though not Latin, apparently coincides with the Latin in meaning, being cognate with cicht, “an engraver.” Picts are first mentioned in A.D. 296 by Eumenius; and after this time their name frequently occurs in the Roman writers, and often in connection with that of the Scoti. See Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. i. (Edinburgh, 1886); Rhys, Celtic Britain (London, 1884); and the article Caledonia.