Specialised

How to spell specialised

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce specialised

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does specialised mean?

1. adjectiveDesigned, trained, or developed for a particular and narrow purpose or field.
2. verbPast tense of specialise: concentrated on or became expert in a particular subject or activity.

Specialised in a sentence

• adjective

  The clinic offers specialised care for patients with rare blood disorders.

• verb

  The firm specialised in employment law long before its rivals did.

• adjective

  Repairing the antique clock required specialised tools that few workshops keep.

• verb

  He specialised in restoring vintage motorcycles after leaving his factory job.

Where does specialised come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin specialis, meaning 'individual' or 'belonging to a particular kind', which was built on species, the noun for 'appearance, form, or kind', itself rooted in the verb specere 'to look at'. English took in 'special' through Old French during the 1200s, and centuries later writers added the verb-forming ending -ise (a suffix that travelled from the Greek -izein into Latin and then French) to create 'specialise', meaning to make particular or to concentrate on one narrow area. The past-participle form 'specialised' simply adds -ed. The British -ise spelling reflects the French influence on the suffix, while the related American form uses -ize, which looks back more directly to the Greek source; this fork is the main spelling trap. The same species root surfaces in everyday relatives such as 'especially', 'spectacle', and 'species' itself, all carrying the idea of looking at or distinguishing kinds.

How the word is built

• speci- (from Latin species: kind, sort)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ise (verb-forming suffix, from Greek -izein via French)
• -ed (past participle)

British and American spelling

Specialised is the British spelling. American English spells it specialized.