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specific

adj
/spɪˈsɪf.ɪk/UK/spɪˈsɪf.ɪk/CA/spəˈsəf.ək/

Etymology

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

  1. derived from speciēs
  2. derived from specificus
  3. derived from specifique

Definitions

  1. Explicit or definite.

  2. Pertaining to a species, as a taxon or taxa at the rank of species.

    • Holonyms: generic, familial
    • Meronyms: infrasubspecific, infraspecific, subspecific
    • Science and literature, then, are the two achievements of Homo sapiens that most convincingly justify the specific name.

  3. Special, distinctive or unique.

    • A psychologist told WJLA TV that, for the most part, this isn’t a Cocomelon-specific issue. The main issue is too much screen time and children's shows with fast-paced sequences.
  4. ›+ 12 more definitions

    1. intended for, or applying to, a particular thing.

    2. Serving to identify a particular thing (often a disease or condition), with little risk…

      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

    3. Being a remedy for a particular disease on a deeper level, rather than just masking the…

      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.

    4. Limited to a particular antibody or antigen.

    5. Of a value divided by mass (e.g. specific orbital energy).

    6. Similarly referring to a value divided by any measure which acts to standardize it (e.g.…

      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)

    7. A measure compared with a standard reference value by division, to produce a ratio…

      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).

    8. A distinguishing attribute or quality.

    9. A remedy for a specific disease or condition.

      • 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.
      • A compound of spurge, cardamom, cinnamon of Mecca, pellitory, ginger, nettle seed is an Arab specific for sexual weakness.

    10. Specification

    11. The details

      The details; particulars.

    12. The distinguishing part of a toponym.

      • With the exception of names of pan-Canadian significance and some alternate forms approved by provincial authorities, the specific is not translated.

The neighborhood

Derived

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 · +45 more

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for specific. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA