spec
1 Americanadjective
verb (used with object)
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to provide specifications for.
The custom turbocharger was spec'd by our mechanic.
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(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
abbreviation
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special.
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specially.
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specifically.
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specification.
abbreviation
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specification
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speculation
noun
adjective
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:
Russell will drive the specification with which he won in Azerbaijan, the week before Malaysia, while Antonelli will run the new spec.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 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
In Bel-Air, a 105,000-square-foot spec house was marketed for $500 million, but by the time it was finished, it was already falling into disrepair and ended up being auctioned off for $141 million.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 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
We told him what the spec four had said about not seeing any fighting.
From "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers
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“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
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A mixture containing 1.055 vols. of spec. gr.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 286, June 25, 1881 by Various
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
Poor Moses' gross of green spectacles would not have proved so bad a spec. in Canada*.
From The Backwoods of Canada Being Letters From The Wife of an Emigrant Officer, Illustrative of the Domestic Economy of British America by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill
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
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
In short: The deal’s all about workflows, like storyboarding and tech specs.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
The girl offers me a sheaf of papers—the Commandant’s specs for Teluman.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
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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
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
By contrast, a similarly specced Class 3 e-bike in the US usually requires... nothing, other than a helmet.
From The Verge ● Apr. 16, 2021
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
Twice on the back nine, Schauffele hit drives straight down the middle, only to arrive at a ball specked with mud, which can throw the next shot off line.
From Seattle Times ● May 20, 2024
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
If Goblin would approach something he feared, Johnny rewarded him with a specked apple, but when he did fall off, he would come home smelling like a cider press.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
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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
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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
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
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