Speciality

How to spell speciality

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce speciality

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does speciality mean?

1. nounA particular activity, skill, dish, or product in which a person or place excels or specialises.

Speciality in a sentence

• Slow-roasted lamb is the chef's speciality at the riverside restaurant.

• Corporate tax law became her professional speciality after a decade in practice.

Where does speciality come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin specialis, meaning 'individual' or 'particular', which was built on species, a noun meaning 'appearance, kind, or type', itself from the verb specere, 'to look at'. Late Latin formed the abstract noun specialitas to describe a particular quality or distinguishing feature, and this passed into Old French as especialite before being trimmed and absorbed into English in the late Middle Ages. The early English sense leaned on the idea of a special arrangement or particular detail, and over time it settled into the familiar modern meaning of a person's strong point or a region's signature product. The same species root quietly survives in words like special, especially, and even spectacle, all of which share that core notion of something seen or set apart. The lengthy spelling, with its full -ali- syllable before the -ity ending, is exactly what trips writers up, since the American form clips it to the shorter 'specialty'.

How the word is built

• speci- (from species: kind, sort, appearance)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)