specialization
Americannoun
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the act of specializing, or pursuing a particular line of study or work.
Medical students with high student loans often feel driven into specialization.
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Biology. the adaptation of an organism or organ to a special function or environment.
Basic biology suggests the selective pressures leading to convergent evolutionary specialization among desert-dwelling species.
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the act of being restricted to some specific, or the act of becoming specialized.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of specialization
Explanation
If you have a specialization, that means you focus on a specific aspect of a larger topic. If you’re a nurse, your specialization might be pediatric care, which means you focus on providing care to infants and children. You probably notice that the word special makes up a big part of specialization, which can help you remember its meaning. Your specialization is your special subject or skill. If you’re planning on studying biology in college, your advisor eventually will ask what your area of specialization will be. When you graduate, you’ll know a lot about biology in general, but there’ll be a particular area — such as marine biology or rodent reproduction — that you studied deeply.
Vocabulary lists containing specialization
The Industrial Revolution - Introductory
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Cell Biology - Middle School
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Cell Biology - High School
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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.
Specialization based on comparative advantage promotes efficiency and economic growth.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026
Specialization has continued to increase, century by century, until the present day.
From Slate • May 9, 2023
Specialization occurs in complex organisms, allowing cells to become more efficient at doing fewer tasks.
From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022
Specialization “leads the individual, if he follows it unreservedly, into bypaths still further off from the highway where men, struggling together, develop strength,” John Dewey, the philosopher and education reformer, wrote in 1902.
From New York Times • Sep. 20, 2021
Specialization increased on larger, more densely populated islands, reaching a peak on Samoa, the Societies, and especially Tonga and Hawaii.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
