Specify

How to spell specify

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce specify

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does specify mean?

1. verbTo state or describe something precisely, naming exact details or requirements.

Specify in a sentence

• The contract should specify the delivery date and the total cost.

• Please specify which size and colour you would like before we order.

Where does specify come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Late Latin specificare, meaning 'to mention particularly' or 'to set out by kind', which was built from the adjective specificus, 'of a particular kind'. That in turn rests on the Latin noun species, meaning 'kind, sort, or appearance', combined with facere, 'to make or do', so the literal idea is 'to make particular' or 'to pin down exactly which sort'. English took the word in through Old French specifier during the 1300s, and it kept the sense of naming something precisely rather than speaking in general terms. The same species root sits inside relatives such as 'special', 'specimen', and 'specific', all of which share the notion of one particular kind picked out from the rest. For spellers the thing to remember is the single -fy ending (from facere), not the -ify or -efy patterns that trip people up in cousins like 'liquefy'.

How the word is built

• speci- (from species: kind, sort)
• -fy (from facere: to make)