Specificity

How to spell specificity

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce specificity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does specificity mean?

1. nounThe quality of being precise, particular, or narrowly defined rather than general.

Specificity in a sentence

• The report lacked the specificity needed to act on its recommendations.

• The diagnostic test was praised for its high specificity in ruling out other conditions.

Where does specificity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word reaches back to the Latin noun species, which literally meant 'a look, a sight, or an appearance' and came to mean 'a kind' or 'a sort' of thing. Late Latin combined that idea with the verb facere, meaning 'to make', to form specificus, the sense being 'belonging to a particular kind'. English took in the adjective 'specific' in the 1600s, and the abstract noun 'specificity' followed, built with the Latin-derived suffix -ity that turns a quality into a thing you can name. The word now describes the state of being precise, particular, or narrowly defined, and it is especially common in science and medicine where a test or reaction is said to have high specificity. The tricky spelling comes from the run of three 'i' sounds and the soft 'c' sounds: remember it is built straight onto 'specific', so the 'c' that ends 'specific' is the same 'c' that starts the awkward middle of 'specificity'.

How the word is built

• speci- (from species: kind, sort)
• -fic (from facere: to make)
• -ity (noun suffix: quality or state)