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specific

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /spəˈsɪf.ɪk/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French spécifique and directly borrowed from Late Latin specificus (“constituting a kind or sort”),[2][3] in Medieval Latin “specific, particular”,[2] from Latin speciēs (“kind, sort”) + -ficus (“making, doing”),[2][4][5] from the combining form of facere (“to make”).[2] The earlier English form was specifical, from the early 15th century.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

“Having a special determining quality”: before 1631, in Donne's poems,[3][6] or the 1630s.[2]

Semantic evolution

The word began in the language of logic and natural history, of what constitutes a species or kind,[6][3] and of qualities peculiar to a thing, from about 1650.[6] In medicine a remedy was specific when it acted on one particular disease, from 1677,[6] and the noun specific, such a remedy, is from 1661, in John Evelyn's Fumifugium.[3][5] The everyday sense “definite, precise, explicit” is from 1740.[3][2] The noun for a particular detail, as in the specifics of the case, is from 1697[3] or the 1690s.[2] Specific gravity is from 1666, in Robert Boyle.[3]

Timeline

  • before 1631 – having a special quality.[3]
  • 1661 – noun, a specific remedy.[3]
  • 1666 – specific gravity.[3]
  • 1677 – of remedies, acting on one disease.[6]
  • 1697 – noun, a detail, particular.[3]
  • 1740 – definite, precise, explicit.[3][2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Clearly stated; definite and precise.
  2. Belonging to or characteristic of a particular thing: specific to the region.
  3. (biology) Relating to a species.
  4. (medicine) Acting on a particular disease: a specific remedy.
  5. (physics) Of a quantity, expressed per unit of mass or volume: specific heat.

Noun

  1. (usually plural) A particular detail or item.
  2. (medicine) A remedy for a particular disease.

Word family

  • specifically
  • gender-specific
  • prespecific
  • stereospecific
  • specificity
  • prostate-specific antigen
  • specific humidity
  • specific volume

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press