spec
noun
Usually specs specification.
Showing results for spec.
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specking.
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:
Degree in hand, Chandrasekaran was hired as a consultant for Boston Consulting Group in Los Angeles and wrote spec scripts in his free time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 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
Miss Skeeter say maybe don’t spec nothing at all, that most Southern peoples is “repressed.”
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 even added grimly that I knew only too well how that sort of spec. generally ended.
From 'Twixt Land and Sea by Joseph Conrad
A mixture containing 1.055 vols. of spec. gr.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 286, June 25, 1881 by Various
Such is the credulity of the age, that the author of the "Coming Struggle" will, probably, realise by this sixpenny "spec.," a very nice little competency.
From Punch - Volume 25 (Jul-Dec 1853) by Various
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
"Chaplain Emma Roberts, 54, and the Labour chief, 56, share the same haircut, brows, thick-rimmed specs and smile," the paper reports, fashioning a game of "spot the difference".
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
In short: The deal’s all about workflows, like storyboarding and tech specs.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
Temporarily he pushed away the specs on the Nexus-6 brain unit, took a pinch of Mrs. Siddons’ No. 3 & 4 snuff and cogitated.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
From the looks of things, despite the radically different design, the S22 Ultra appears to be a very similarly specced device to its predecessor.
From The Verge ● Jan. 26, 2022
Image: Dell That webcam is attached to a decently specced display: it’s 31.5 inches, IPS, and runs at 60Hz.
From The Verge ● Jan. 4, 2022
It can be specced up to a Core i7, 1TB of storage, and 32GB of RAM.
From The Verge ● Sep. 22, 2021
There’s no Hasselblad-branded cameras, just a reasonably specced set of sensors.
From The Verge ● Jul. 22, 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
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
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
Balaclava, with its Greek population, its girdle of rocks, and its mild climate, resembles those little towns of the Archipelago that are seen specking the horizon as one sails towards Constantinople.
From Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. by Xavier Hommaire de Hell
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
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