Specialist

How to spell specialist

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce specialist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does specialist mean?

1. nounA person who concentrates on and is highly skilled in one particular branch of a subject or profession.
2. adjectiveRelating to or requiring focused expertise in one particular field.

Specialist in a sentence

• noun

  The clinic referred her to a heart specialist for further tests.

• adjective

  The repair needs specialist tools that an ordinary garage does not stock.

• noun

  The firm hired a tax specialist to handle the complex return.

• adjective

  The role demands specialist knowledge of employment law.

Where does specialist come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin species, meaning 'appearance', 'kind', or 'sort', which itself grew from the verb specere, 'to look at'. From species came the medieval Latin specialis, meaning 'particular' or 'individual' rather than general, the same root that gives English 'special' and 'especially'. The ending -ist, ultimately from the Greek -istes by way of Latin and French, marks a person who practises or is devoted to something, just as in 'artist' or 'scientist'. The full form 'specialist' emerged in English in the early nineteenth century, first describing a doctor who confined their practice to one branch of medicine, and it broadened to mean any expert focused on a narrow field. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the 'ci' is pronounced like 'sh', so writers can be tempted to spell what they hear, and the unstressed 'a' in the -al- syllable is an easily dropped schwa.

How the word is built

• speci- (from Latin species: kind, sort)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ist (one who practises or is expert in)