Noun: specific
| Singular | specific |
| Plural | specifics |
Sample Sentences
-
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. [1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IX, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 201:]
-
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 mortals wished to resist or unspell elf-craft, they, too, had "to go widershins," or they had to repeat the Paternoster backwards, which came to the same thing, or do something else contrariwise. [1891 January 3, I. Gollancz, “Widishins”, in The Academy, London, page 14, column 3:]
-
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:]
-
I had no unreasonable fear of bats, […] yet I knew them too for carriers of the dread “Hydrophobia,” for which there was no specific. [1968, Charles Portis, True Grit:]
-
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 Plus, Ottawa: Translation Bureau, retrieved 09 Nov 2024:]
Nouns inflected like specific
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Old French specifique, from Late Latin specificus (“specific, particular”), from Latin speciēs (“kind”) + -ific. See: Latin Nouns '
speciēs'.