specific
English
Alternative forms
- specifick (obsolete)
Etymology
From Old French specifique, from Late Latin specificus (“specific, particular”), from Latin speciēs (“kind”) + faciō (“make”).
Pronunciation
- (General American, UK) IPA(key): /spəˈsɪf.ɪk/, /spɪˈsɪf.ɪk/
- Rhymes: -ɪfɪk
- Hyphenation: spe‧cif‧ic
Audio (US) (file) - (Hong Kong) IPA(key): /spɛk.ˈsi.fɪk/
Adjective
specific (comparative more specific, superlative most specific)
- explicit or definite.
- (bioscience, taxonomy) pertaining to a species, as a taxon or taxa at the rank of species.
- 2008, Richard Dawkins, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, Oxford, published 2009, page 3:
- Science and literature, then, are the two achievements of Homo sapiens that most convincingly justify the specific name.
- Hyponyms: monospecific, multispecific, oligospecific, paucispecific
- Coordinate terms: subspecific, infraspecific, generic, familial
- special, distinctive or unique.
- intended for, or applying to, a particular thing.
- Serving to identify a particular thing (often a disease or condition), with little risk of mistaking something else for it.
- a highly specific test, specific and nonspecific symptoms
- being a remedy for a particular disease on a deeper level, rather than just masking the symptoms
- Quinine is a specific medicine in cases of malaria.
- Any improvement in secondary sciatica is probably due to the analgesic action of the sodium salicylate, but in primary sciatica, in all likelihood “rheumatic,” the effect of the sodium salicylate appears to be specific rather than symptomatic.
- 1830 May 23, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Specific Medicines”, in Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, volume I, London: J. Murray, page 147:
- The study of specific medicines is too much disregarded now. No doubt, the hunting after specifics is a mark of ignorance and weakness in medicine, yet the neglect of them is proof also of immaturity ; for, in fact, all medicines will be found specific in the perfection of science.
- (immunology) limited to a particular antibody or antigen.
- (physics) of a value divided by mass (e.g. specific orbital energy)
- (physics) similarly referring to a value divided by any measure which acts to standardize it (e.g. thrust specific fuel consumption, referring to fuel consumption divided by thrust)
- (physics) a measure compared with a standard reference value by division, to produce a ratio without unit or dimension (e.g. specific refractive index is a pure number, and is relative to that of air)
Synonyms
- (explicit, definite): express, monosemous, unambiguous; see also Thesaurus:explicit
- (special, distinctive or unique): singular; see also Thesaurus:unique
- (intended for a particular thing): peculiar, singular; see also Thesaurus:specific
Antonyms
- unspecific, nonspecific
- (antonym(s) of “intended for a particular thing”): broad, general, generic, universal; see also Thesaurus:generic
- The terms below need to be checked and allocated to the definitions (senses) of the headword above. Each term should appear in the sense for which it is appropriate. For synonyms and antonyms you may use the templates
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Hyponyms
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- application-specific
- array-specific
- browser-specific
- client-specific
- CLR-specific
- company-specific
- conspecific
- container-specific
- culture-specific
- database-specific
- discipline-specific
- domain-specific
- Eclipse-specific
- flight-specific
- gender-specific
- HTTP-specific
- infraspecific
- interspecific
- intraspecific
- JSON-specific
- MySQL-specific
- osmospecific
- OS-specific
- platform-specific
- problem-specific
- program-specific
- prostate-specific
- recording-specific
- serotonin-specific
- server-specific
- spaceflight-specific
- species-specific
- store-specific
- task-specific
- topic-specific
Derived terms
- allospecific
- antiphosphospecific
- aspecific
- biospecific
- bispecific
- cardiospecific
- chemospecific
- chirospecific
- cospecific
- domain-specific language
- donor-specific antibody
- ecospecific
- enantiospecific
- ethnospecific
- extraspecific
- gender-specific
- geospecific
- haplospecific
- hepatospecific
- heterospecific
- homospecific
- hyperspecific
- idiospecific
- immunospecific
- inspecific
- isospecific
- JVM-specific
- nanospecific
- neurospecific
- nothospecific
- organospecific
- osteospecific
- overspecific
- panspecific
- paraspecific
- phosphospecific
- plurispecific
- polyspecific
- prespecific
- prostate-specific antigen
- quadrispecific
- regiospecific
- semispecific
- serospecific
- serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor
- specifical
- specifically
- specificate
- specific charge
- specific contract
- specific density
- specific energy
- specific epithet
- specific fuel consumption
- specific gravity
- specific heat
- specific heat capacity
- specific humidity
- specific impulse
- specificity
- specificize
- specificker
- specific language impairment
- specific leaf area
- specific name
- specificness
- specific performance
- specific phobia
- specific power
- specific resistance
- specific risk
- specific rotation
- specific thrust
- specific volume
- specific weight
- stereospecific
- superspecific
- supraspecific
- thermospecific
- transspecific
- trispecific
- ultraspecific
- underspecific
- unispecific
- xenospecific
Translations
explicit or definite
|
of, or relating to a species
pertaining to a taxon at the rank of species
special, distinctive or unique
|
intended for, or applying to a particular thing
|
being a remedy for a particular disease
|
being limited to a particular antibody or antigen
|
of a value divided by the mass
of a measure compared to a standard reference
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
See also
Noun
specific (plural specifics)
- A distinguishing attribute or quality.
- A remedy for a specific disease or condition.
- 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IX, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 201:
- Change of scene, and a new lover, are infallible specifics, always supposing there is no character for constancy to be supported: if I witness the violent sorrow of to-day, I impose upon to-morrow the necessity of being sorry also.
- 1968, Charles Portis, True Grit:
- I had no unreasonable fear of bats, […] yet I knew them too for carriers of the dread “Hydrophobia,” for which there was no specific.
- Specification
- (in the plural) The details; particulars.
Translations
distinguishing attribute
|
Further reading
- “specific”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “specific”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “specific”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Romanian
Etymology
Borrowed from French spécifique.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /speˈt͡ʃi.fik/
Adjective
specific m or n (feminine singular specifică, masculine plural specifici, feminine and neuter plural specifice)
- specific
- Antonym: nespecific
Declension
Declension of specific
| singular | plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | neuter | feminine | masculine | neuter | feminine | ||
| nominative/ accusative | indefinite | specific | specifică | specifici | specifice | ||
| definite | specificul | specifica | specificii | specificele | |||
| genitive/ dative | indefinite | specific | specifice | specifici | specifice | ||
| definite | specificului | specificei | specificelor | specificilor | |||
Related terms
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