Specifications

How to spell specifications

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce specifications

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does specifications mean?

1. nounA detailed description of the requirements, dimensions, or standards that a product, material, or job must meet.

Specifications in a sentence

• The engineer checked that the new parts matched the original specifications.

• The builder followed the architect's specifications down to the last measurement.

Where does specifications come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb specificare, meaning 'to mention specifically' or 'to sort by kind', which was assembled from species, meaning 'a kind, sort, or appearance', and facere, 'to make'. The Latin species itself came from specere, 'to look at', so the underlying idea is something distinguished by how it looks or what kind it is. Medieval Latin produced specificatio for the act of naming a thing in detail, and English borrowed the form 'specification' in the 1600s, originally as a legal and technical term for stating particulars precisely. The plural 'specifications' became the standard shorthand in engineering, construction, and manufacturing for the full set of detailed requirements a product must meet. The same species root still surfaces in 'special', 'species', and 'specific', and recognising that middle 'fic' (from facere, 'to make') helps explain why the word is spelled with a c and not an s.

How the word is built

• speci- (from species: kind, appearance)
• -fic- (from facere: to make)
• -ation (act/result noun)
• -s (plural)