specific

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old French specifique, from Late Latin specificus (“specific, particular”), from Latin speciēs (“kind”) + faciō (“make”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

specific (comparative more specific, superlative most specific)

  2. explicit or definite.
  4. (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
  6. special, distinctive or unique.
  8. intended for, or applying to, a particular thing.
  10. 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
  11. 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.
  13. (immunology) limited to a particular antibody or antigen.
  15. (physics) of a value divided by mass (e.g. specific orbital energy)
  17. (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)
  19. (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

Antonyms

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Hyponyms

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Derived terms

Translations

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See also

Noun

specific (plural specifics)

  1. A distinguishing attribute or quality.
  2. 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.
  3. Specification
  4. (in the plural) The details; particulars.

Translations

Further reading

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French spécifique.

Pronunciation

Adjective

specific m or n (feminine singular specifică, masculine plural specifici, feminine and neuter plural specifice)

  1. 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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