specificity

English

Etymology

From French spécificité. By surface analysis, specific +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /spɛsɪˈfɪsɪti/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

specificity (plural specificities)

1. The state of being specific rather than general.
   • 2024 October 14, Patrick Eddington, James Craven, Police Want the Password to Your Phone‎^[1]:

     Congress must set a clear standard: Police should prove with specificity what's on your phone before forcing it open, and only after the device's owner has consulted with a lawyer. Doing so would provide citizens a means to ensure police follow warrant requirements without sacrificing law enforcement's ability to pursue the crime they're investigating.

2. The extent to which a characteristic is specific to a given person, place, or thing; thus:
   1. (statistics) The probability, in a binary classification test, of a true negative being correctly identified.

      Coordinate term: sensitivity

   2. (medicine) The extent to which a particular diagnostic test is specific for, or a symptom or sign is specific to, a given condition.

Synonyms

• specificness (much less common)

Antonyms

• nonspecificity
• genericity

Coordinate terms

• (statistics, binary probability): sensitivity

Derived terms

• allospecificity
• aspecificity
• bispecificity
• chemospecificity
• conspecificity
• diastereospecificity
• enantiospecificity
• heterospecificity
• heterosubspecificity
• homospecificity
• hyperspecificity
• immunospecificity
• interspecificity
• intraspecificity
• isospecificity
• monospecificity
• multispecificity
• neospecificity
• neurospecificity
• nonspecificity
• organospecificity
• overspecificity
• paraspecificity
• polyspecificity
• regiospecificity
• serospecificity
• stereospecificity
• subspecificity
• unspecificity
• xenospecificity

 

Translations

the state of being specific rather than general

• Bulgarian: специфичност (bg) (specifičnost)
• Catalan: especificitat f
• Dutch: specificiteit
• Esperanto: specifeco
• Finnish: erityisyys, täsmällisyys (fi)
• French: spécificité (fr) f
• Georgian: სპეციფიკურობა (sṗecipiḳuroba)
• German: Spezifizität f
• Hebrew: ייחודיות \ יִחוּדִיּוּת f (yiḥudiyút)
• Italian: specificità (it)
• Polish: specyfika (pl) f, specyficzność (pl) f
• Portuguese: especificidade (pt) f
• Romanian: specificitate (ro) f
• Russian: специ́фика (ru) f (specífika)
• Spanish: especificidad (es) f
• Ukrainian: специфіка f (specyfika)

(statistics) probability in a binary classification test of a true negative being correctly identified

• Finnish: tarkkuus (fi)
• French: spécificité (fr) f
• German: Spezifität (de) f
• Hebrew: סגוליות \ סְגֻלִּיּוּת f (sguliyút)
• Indonesian: spesifisitas
• Romanian: specificitate (ro) f

Further reading

• “specificity”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “specificity”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.