spec
noun
Usually specs specification.
Showing results for spec.
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specked.
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
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
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
But NASA's got a lot of nervous Nellies who don't want me out longer than spec.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
“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
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 Traill, Catharine Parr Strickland
No. 2, 40 deg.; percentage, 41; spec. grav.
From Photogravure by Blaney, Henry R.
A mixture containing 1.055 vols. of spec. gr.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 286, June 25, 1881 by Various
"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
I had low expectations but, after a week of testing, I find it’s far more capable than specs suggest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 15, 2026
The MacBook Neo costs less because its specs are less impressive than other Apple laptops.
From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026
According to the specs, the heating equipment soaks up 400 watts.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
The Titan starts at $3,199 for a Core i7-12800HX / RTX 3070 Ti / 32GB / 1TB model, while the fully specced Core i9-12900HX / RTX 3080 Ti configuration is a whopping $4,949.
From The Verge ● Jun. 1, 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
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
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
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
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)
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 Wallace, Lewis
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.
