Definition of "specific"

specific

/spəˈsɪf.ɪk/

adjective
comparative more specific, superlative most specific
1. explicit or definite.
2. (bioscience, taxonomy) pertaining to a species, as a taxon or taxa at the rank of species.
  Quotations
  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.
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.
6. being a remedy for a particular disease on a deeper level, rather than just masking the symptoms
  Quotations
  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 medicines will be found specific in the perfection of science.
  1830 May 23, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Specific Medicines”, in Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, volume I, London: J. Murray, page 147
7. (immunology) limited to a particular antibody or antigen.
8. (physics) of a value divided by mass (e.g. specific orbital energy)
9. (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)
10. (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)
noun
plural specifics
1. A distinguishing attribute or quality.
2. A remedy for a specific disease or condition.
  Quotations
  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, […], page 201
  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
3. Specification
4. (in the plural) The details; particulars.

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