spec
noun
Usually specs specification.
spec
1 American
[spek]
/ spɛk /
adjective
verb (used with object)
spec'd,
specked,
specced,
spec'ing,
specking,
speccing
-
to provide specifications for.
The custom turbocharger was spec'd by our mechanic.
-
(in a video game) to create or update (a character) by assigning attributes, skills, weapons, armor, and other items that affect the character’s powers, speed, strength, intelligence, etc..
Do your research before you spec your character, because some builds are just not viable and this game does not allow you to re-spec.
idioms
spec.
2
American
abbreviation
-
special.
-
specially.
-
specifically.
-
specification.
spec.
1
British
abbreviation
-
specification
-
speculation
spec
2
British
/ spɛk /
noun
adjective
spec
More Idioms
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of spec
An Americanism dating back to 1785–95; by shortening
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
With all the data available after the race, we fine-tuned a little bit the set-up around that new spec.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
“I’ve been buying over the past two, three years anyway and making some investments and putting out some new spec homes, but I think we’re going to start getting a little bit more aggressive now.”
From MarketWatch ● May 22, 2026
One theory on the F1 paddock was that Mercedes had discovered a hack with regard to engine compression ratios, a technical spec that ultimately affects engine horsepower.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 8, 2026
Meritage, an Arizona-based builder with a roughly $4.8 billion market cap, stands out by building entirely speculative, or spec, homes, which are constructed before a buyer signs a contract.
From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026
From the good Buick she drive and her nice buckle shoes, I spec Miss Fredericks got a lot more money than Mister and Miss Leefolt do.
From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
“The idea is: Okay, we tested it, it’s perfectly good heavy water. It meets spec. We’ll buy a little of this,” U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 22, 2016
He does, however, object to the second: "As a name of opprobrium or reprobation; spec. applied to a grasping or extortionate moneylender or usurer, or a trader who drives hard bargains or deals craftily."
From Time Magazine Archive
You can't, just because you happen to be made prefects, haul up seniors and jaw 'em on spec., like a house-master.
From Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling
Then, having made an appointment for the coming day, and agreed to let the work of shadowing the gambler or, rather, his business, remain a "private spec." to Jarvis, they separated.
From Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter by Lawrence L. Lynch
No. 2, 40 deg.; percentage, 41; spec. grav.
From Photogravure by Henry R. Blaney
That’s created a critical bottleneck in networking, “supporting higher specs and pricing,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 30, 2026
The Metro covers the hunt for eclipse glasses, dubbing it Black Wednesday as the demand for specs to watch the solar eclipse has resulted in a "money-making bonanza" for shops.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
Her specs do have a new feature, though: an AI agent voiced by Kylie herself.
From Salon ● Jul. 2, 2026
Gibson might not know specs like RPMs or cylinders, but he said he appreciates the “Fast and Furious” characters’ gorgeous cars, including Dominic Toretto’s 1970 Dodge Charger and Brian O’Connor’s late ’90s Mitsubishi Eclipse.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
Lucky for me, the tech specs for everything are right here in the computer.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
The Titan starts at $3,199 for a Core i7-12800HX / RTX 3070 Ti / 32GB / 1TB model, while the fully specced Core i9-12900HX / RTX 3080 Ti configuration is a whopping $4,949.
From The Verge ● Jun. 1, 2022
It’s built a loyal fanbase around nice looking all-in-one portable projectors that are reasonably specced yet still inexpensive.
From The Verge ● Nov. 24, 2021
There’s no Hasselblad-branded cameras, just a reasonably specced set of sensors.
From The Verge ● Jul. 22, 2021
To get a similarly specced Balsam Hill tree at a price close to our pick, you’re limited to the company’s Traditional line, which is made entirely of PVC.
From Slate ● Nov. 23, 2018
Yeah, but the DoD had an RFI for an RFQ that became a RFP, specced by NSA and based upon TD-80-81.
From Terminal Compromise: computer terrorism: when privacy and freedom are the victims: a novel by Winn Schwartau
I’d option-delete those, if I were speccing a car for myself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
Honor has done a good job at speccing out the hardware of the Magic4 Pro.
From The Verge ● May 12, 2022
These allusions to Ireland are ever-present in the band’s creations, with titles such as “Tir na nÓg” and “Connla’s Well” specked across their discography.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2025
It’s a thinner pizza with a distinctively “soft and fluffy” crust that’s been brushed with garlic butter and specked with Grana Padano cheese.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 24, 2023
His face specked with bird droppings, he stares blankly at the sagging roof, a final indignity for a leader whose all-seeing eyes held millions in terrified thrall for four decades.
From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2021
Rereading Woolf newly attuned to color, I notice that precise tints and hues daub nearly every paragraph: birds' breasts are "specked canary and rose," morning air is "grey-blue," brooches "sea-green."
From Salon ● Feb. 16, 2020
Through the fly- specked screen-door, I could see that the arms of Momma’s apron jiggled from the vibrations of her humming.
From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
Along the Grand Strand, the stretch of beach communities specking the South Carolina coast, people had to be plucked from flooded cars and buildings surrounded by water and piers had been swept into the ocean.
From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2022
Last week Luftwaffe planes spotted a huge Allied convoy specking the slate-grey sea between Iceland and Norway's North Cape.
From Time Magazine Archive
Between Fanar, the last northern point of lookout over the Black Sea, and Galata, down on the Golden Horn, there are about thirty hamlets, villages and cities specking the European shore of the Bosphorus.
From The Prince of India — Volume 02 by Lewis Wallace
We have twenty-one of them up, specking the sky as clearly as a bacteriologist's slide is specked with microbes.
From Letters from France by C. E. W. (Charles Edwin Woodrow) Bean
Thou wouldst deem that all the ravens of Erin were above him, and that flakes of snow were specking the plain before him.”
From Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland by T. O. Russell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
