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:
“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
“First quarter gross margins reflect the impact of higher incentives as the company responded to competitive market dynamics and successfully worked to reduce excess spec inventory,” PulteGroup said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
A complication was that McLaren were not running the latest specification of Mercedes power-unit, so can expect an uplift when they switch in Australia to the latest spec.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2026
“I’m only saying,” said Gregory Powell, patiently, as one explaining electronics to an idiot child, “that according to spec, those robots are equipped for asteroid mining without supervision. We’re not supposed to watch them.”
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
“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
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 Kipling, Rudyard
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 Lynch, Lawrence L.
"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
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
I had low expectations but, after a week of testing, I find it far more capable than its specs suggest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 14, 2026
“Joseph Powdermilk, Jr. I have the specs in the computer and can run you a printout if you like.”
From "Lawn Boy" by Gary Paulsen
It’d be nice if TCL would release identically specced Roku and Google TV sets at the same time and simply let consumers choose their preferred software experience.
From The Verge ● Sep. 1, 2022
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
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 Schwartau, Winn
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
But the cream-filled doughnuts would be my choice, from the caffeine jolt I got after eating the coffee cream specked with ground beans to a milky, horchata-filled doughnut colored with fall spices.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 4, 2023
The 16-inch trout he brought to the net was brilliant to behold — plump, with a body of yellow and reddish orange, specked with fine black spots.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 13, 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
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 Bean, C. E. W. (Charles Edwin Woodrow)
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 Hell, Xavier Hommaire de
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 Russell, T. O.
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.
