specific

Explicit or definite.

Adjective

  1. Explicit or definite.
    • While some participants, like Gabi and Jasmine, had access to a gym but still felt uncertain about using specific types of equipment, others who trained at home faced even greater challenges due to the absence of both a...
  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. - 2008, Richard Dawkins, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, Oxford, published 2009, page 3:
  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. - 2023 April 26, Rayna Skiver, “Actually...
  4. intended for, or applying to, a particular thing.
  5. 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
  6. 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...
    • 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...
  7. Limited to a particular antibody or antigen.
  8. Of a value divided by mass (e.g. specific orbital energy).
  9. 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)
  10. 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).

Origin

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

Forms

more specific most specific specifick

Synonyms

express monosemous unambiguous singular peculiar concrete discrete individual particular proper specific

Antonyms

unspecific nonspecific broad general generic universal all-purpose general-purpose gross group-specific antigen non-specific overall pandemic specific activity specific gravity bottle widespread

Hyponyms

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

Related

generic

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

Noun

  1. A distinguishing attribute or quality.
  2. 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...
    • If Burd Ellen had gone “widishins" round the church, she would, I think, have used the best homoeopathic specific against the Elf-King's power; for "to go widishins" was the chief element in elfin practices, and if...
    • A compound of spurge, cardamom, cinnamon of Mecca, pellitory, ginger, nettle seed is an Arab specific for sexual weakness. - 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 228:
  3. Specification
  4. The details; particulars.
  5. 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. - 2024 July 29, “geographical names: translation”, in Writing Tips...

    Antonyms: generic

Forms

specifics specifick