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specificity

Specificity is the goal of anyone who wants to know — or give — every single detail. If your friend's story is too vague, ask for specificity when things aren't clear.

Specificity may look hard to pronounce, but if you remember that the first syllable rhymes with guess, the rest will flow easily: "spes-uh-FIS-uh-tee." Now try specificus, the Latin word at the root of specificity and the word species. Those words may not seem related — until you think about the classification of living things: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Species is the most specific in the hierarchy!

DEFINITIONS OF: specificity

1

n the quality of being specific rather than general

“add a desirable note of specificity to the discussion”
“the specificity of the symptoms of the disease”
Type of:
particularity, specialness
the quality of being particular and pertaining to a specific case or instance

n the quality of being specific to a particular organism

“host specificity of a parasite”
Type of:
particularity, specialness
the quality of being particular and pertaining to a specific case or instance
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