different between specific vs generalized

English

Alternative forms

• specifick (obsolete)

Etymology

From Old French specifique, from Late Latin specificus (“specific, particular”), from Latin speci?s (“kind”) + faci? (“make”).

Pronunciation

• (General American, UK) IPA^(key): /sp??s?f.?k/, /sp??s?f.?k/
• Rhymes: -?f?k
• Hyphenation: spe?cif?ic

Adjective

specific (comparative more specific, superlative most specific)

1. explicit or definite
2. (sciences) pertaining to a species
   • 2008, Richard Dawkins, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, Oxford 2009, p. 3:

     Science and literature, then, are the two achievements of Homo sapiens that most convincingly justify the specific name.

3. (taxonomy) pertaining to a taxon at the rank of species
4. special, distinctive or unique
5. intended for, or applying to, a particular thing
6. 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

7. being a remedy for a particular disease

   Quinine is a specific medicine in cases of malaria.
8. (immunology) limited to a particular antibody or antigen
9. (physics) of a value divided by mass (e.g. specific orbital energy)
10. (physics) 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)
11. (physics) 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)

Synonyms

• (explicit, definite): express, monosemous, unambiguous; see also Thesaurus:explicit
• (special, distinctive or unique): singular; see also Thesaurus:unique
• (intended for a particular thing): peculiar, singular; see also Thesaurus:specific

Antonyms

• unspecific, nonspecific
• (intended for a particular thing): broad, general, generic, universal; see also Thesaurus:generic

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• generic

Noun

specific (plural specifics)

1. A distinguishing attribute or quality.
2. A remedy for a specific disease or condition.
   • 1968, Charles Portis, True Grit:

     I had no unreasonable fear of bats, […] yet I knew them too for carriers of the dread “Hydrophobia,” for which there was no specific.

3. Specification
4. (in the plural) The details; particulars.

Further reading

• specific in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• specific in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• specific at OneLook Dictionary Search

Romanian

Etymology

From French spécifique.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spe?t??i.fik/

Adjective

specific m or n (feminine singular specific?, masculine plural specifici, feminine and neuter plural specifice)

1. specific

   Antonym: nespecific

Declension

Related terms

• specificitate

English

Adjective

generalized (comparative more generalized, superlative most generalized)

1. Made more general, less specialized.

   The generalized formula applies to all cases, the specialized one only works on simple problems.

2. (medicine) Spread throughout or affecting the entire body or body part.

Translations

Verb

generalized

1. simple past tense and past participle of generalize