spec
noun
Usually specs specification.
Showing results for spec.
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speccing.
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:
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
After writing a pilot on spec, he approached the executives at Crave — where he had previously produced “Letterkenny,” “Shoresy” and “Canada’s Drag Race” — about green-lighting a series.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2026
The military still lacks the multiyear funding to fully meet its production targets, prompting some officials to ask defense contractors to add more capacity on spec ahead of actual orders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025
Nvidia and other chip designers pay high development costs to design GPUs to spec for buyers of huge quantities.
From Barron's ● Dec. 19, 2025
And how many calories do I spec them meringue thingies have?
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
No. 2, 40 deg.; percentage, 41; spec. grav.
From Photogravure by Blaney, Henry R.
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 Hyne, Charles John Cutcliffe Wright
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
"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
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
But no one inside the team had ever laid eyes on the full set of rules and specs that would govern the sport in 2026.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 7, 2026
He set his reading specs aside and looked at me for the first time.
From "The Journey of Little Charlie" by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Eero Pro 6E is $300 and is specced to cover a 2,000-square-foot living space.
From The Verge ● Apr. 5, 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
For most people, I don’t think the 8,000Hz refresh rate makes enough of a difference to warrant recommending the Huntsman V2 over an otherwise similarly specced competitor.
From The Verge ● Sep. 24, 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
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
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
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.
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)
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.
