spec
noun
Usually specs specification.
Showing results for spec.
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specced.
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:
Back then, spec houses — homes built without a specific buyer in mind — were selling like hotcakes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
Antonelli drove the new spec and Russell the old, and by the end of the weekend the team said they had made some progress in understanding the new aerodynamic package.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
Custom home builders are reporting stronger market conditions than spec builders, reflecting better conditions in the higher end of the market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 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
“I asked Minny three times and she still say she ain’t gone do it. I spec it’s time I believed her.”
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
I'm afraid our spec. has rather missed fire here, and I don't want to expiate the offence by a spell of carcel.
From The Recipe for Diamonds by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
I even added grimly that I knew only too well how that sort of spec. generally ended.
From 'Twixt Land and Sea by Joseph Conrad
No. 2, 40 deg.; percentage, 41; spec. grav.
From Photogravure by Henry R. Blaney
People seem more likely to adopt its smart glasses made in collaboration with Ray-Ban because they’re called Meta, rather than Facebook, specs.
From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2026
“Visibility may depend less on advertising to people and more on being clearly described to agents through specs, structured product data and reviews that match the criteria agents ask about,” Kim said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026
When the bar for the films themselves is so dreadfully low, I can’t imagine a Marvel fan getting upset about the technical specs of their repetitive, predictable, formulaic, lab-made, half-finished superhero movies.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 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
"We used his specs," said Simon, smearing a black cheek with his forearm.
From "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
That’s relatively expensive compared to similarly specced 4K all-in-ones priced at $1,699, but will hold any judgement pending reviews.
From The Verge ● Jan. 4, 2022
There’s no Hasselblad-branded cameras, just a reasonably specced set of sensors.
From The Verge ● Jul. 22, 2021
That’s $130 more than a similarly specced Go without LTE — plus whatever you’ll spend on data.
From The Verge ● Dec. 19, 2018
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
He wore a black championship shirt, a white championship hat and goggles still specked with champagne bubbles.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 18, 2022
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
Ten days later, Joe Rantz sat again on a train, looking out through the fly- specked window of the coach, watching a fresh new American calamity begin to unfold.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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
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
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
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
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