specific

Meanings

Adjective

  • explicit or definite
  • pertaining to a species
  • pertaining to a taxon at the rank of species
  • 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.
  • being a remedy for a particular disease
  • limited to a particular antibody or antigen
  • of a value divided by mass (e.g. specific orbital energy)
  • 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)
  • 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)

Noun

Related

Opposite words

Narrower meaning words

Origin

  • From Old French specifique, from Late Latin specificus ("specific, particular"), from Latin speciēs ("kind") + faciō.

Modern English dictionary

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