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:
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
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
A few days later, Los Angeles touted its first completion only to face criticism because the house was a builder spec home permitted for demolition and rebuilding before the Palisades fire destroyed it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
A friend asked if I wanted to write a sitcom spec script.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025
“I asked Minny three times and she still say she ain’t gone do it. I spec it’s time I believed her.”
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
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
I even added grimly that I knew only too well how that sort of spec. generally ended.
From 'Twixt Land and Sea by Conrad, Joseph
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
"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
She’s got a clipboard in her hand and horn-rimmed reading specs on a chain around her neck.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
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
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
The Eero Pro 6E is $300 and is specced to cover a 2,000-square-foot living space.
From The Verge ● Apr. 5, 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
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
His face specked with bird droppings, he stares blankly at the sagging roof, a final indignity for a leader whose all-seeing eyes held millions in terrified thrall for four decades.
From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2021
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
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.
