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Specific   /spəsˈɪfɪk/  /spɪsˈɪfɪk/   Listen
Specific

adjective
1.
(sometimes followed by 'to') applying to or characterized by or distinguishing something particular or special or unique.  "Demands specific to the job" , "A specific and detailed account of the accident"
2.
Stated explicitly or in detail.
3.
Relating to or distinguishing or constituting a taxonomic species.
4.
Being or affecting a disease produced by a particular microorganism or condition; used also of stains or dyes used in making microscope slides.  "A specific remedy" , "A specific stain is one having a specific affinity for particular structural elements"



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"Specific" Quotes from Famous Books



... various discussions, the subject of people living to a great age in Bulgaria was brought up. Specific instances were noted; one, a pair of Bulgarian twins both of whom lived to be one hundred and twenty years of age and both died on the same date. It was suggested that the two oldest members of the Commission, Mr. Farquhar and myself, ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... was omitted from numbers, but not always. A few specific cases: twenty five > twenty-five twenty four > twenty-four seventy five > seventy-five thirty ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... by my guardian spirit to converse with me and by their friendly assistance save me? Many of the faces we see around us every day are, I believe, attendant spirits, and phantasms of every species, that have adopted physical form for some specific purpose. ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... heard you, Mr. Sandford, complain of indisposition before. Will you accept of my specific for the head-ache? Indeed it is a certain ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... above, electricity that quietly traverses a large wire will suddenly develop great heat upon reaching a point where it is called upon to traverse, a smaller one. Platinum was attempted for this place of greater resistance because of its qualities. It does not rust, has a low specific heat, and is therefore raised to a higher temperature with less heat imparted. But it was a scarce and expensive material, and so long as it was heated to incandescence in the open air, that is, so long as its heat was fed as other heat is, by oxygen, it ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... instability is more pronounced. A relatively large fraction of its atoms transmute per second to a solid element designated Radium A. In turn this new generation of atoms breaks up—even faster than the emanation—becoming yet another element with specific chemical properties. And so on for a whole sequence of transmutations, till finally a stable substance is formed, identical with ordinary lead in chemical and physical properties, but possessing a slightly ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... specific and positive identification of these seeds it will be necessary either for a botanist to visit the region from which they came or to have at his disposal a complete collection of the plants of the vicinity. Under such conditions he could by ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... It will require a greater initial battery to bring an iron wire of the same size and resistance to a given temperature than it will a platina wire in proportion to their specific heats, and in the case of Carbon, a piece of Carbon three inches long and one-eighth diameter, with a resistance of 1 ohm, will require a greater battery power to bring it to a given temperature than a cylinder of thin platina foil of the same length, diameter, and resistance, because ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... 1752, although she is literally pulled to pieces, there is no reference whatever to her nose, which may be taken as proof positive that it was not an assailable feature. Moreover, in the book as we now have it, Fielding, obviously in deference to contemporary criticism, inserted the following specific passages:—"She was, indeed, a most charming woman; and I know not whether the little scar on her nose did not rather add to, than diminish her beauty" (Book iv. chap, vii.); and in Mrs. James's portrait:—"Then her nose, as well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side." No previous ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... call it Whale Island," replied the man; "but as for where we are, we cannot exactly tell ourselves, for we are a floating island, being composed entirely of pumice stone, whose specific gravity, as you must know, is much ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the replacement to occur in the case of the London Inner Circle Railway, because there the necessary tunnel already exists to help the imagination of the English reader, but that the specific replacement will occur is rendered improbable by the fact that the circle is for much of its circumference entangled with other lines of communication—the North-Western Railway, for example. As a matter of fact, as the American ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... away with usury and they will fall apart like balls of sand; the cohesive power will be gone; the centralization will cease and the wealth will speedily return to the various individuals from whom it was gathered. This remedy may seem heroic, but it is a specific and is the simplest of all ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... P. (the Executrix) by her will, dated 3d July, 1617, gave a specific legacy to her granddaughter Thomasine Hornby, which was to be void if she sued or impleaded her executor, relative to any gift, legacy or bequest, under the above will; from which it may be concluded the portion of John Hornby's wife was never ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... was set upon its feet, and its long career of blessed usefulness was begun. This is only one of the many gifts which Wellesley owes to Mrs. Durant. As Professor Katharine Lee Bates has said in her charming sketch of Mrs. Durant in the Wellesley Legenda for 1894: "Her specific gifts to Wellesley it is impossible to completely enumerate. She has forgotten, and no one else ever knew. So long as Mr. Durant was living, husband and wife were one and inseparable in service and donation. But since his death, while it has been ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... young animals of these species which are the most social and docile and most approach man in appearance. As they grow older, their specific characters become more marked. Fierce and sullen as is the old gorilla, the young of this species is playful and affectionate in captivity and is given to mischievous tricks. The one that was kept for a time in Berlin showed much good-nature, playfulness, and intelligence, ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... called white jargoon. It's a stuff that's very easily faked. You work it with the flame of a blow-pipe. You don't want a full description, I suppose? Anyway, what happens is that the blow-pipe sets it up like a tonic. Gives it increased specific gravity and a healthy complexion and all sorts of great things of that kind. Two minutes in the flame of a blow-pipe is like a week at the seashore to a bit of white jargoon. Are you satisfied? If it comes to that, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... relation. He takes life on a certain principle. He has a compass in his spirit which points in a certain direction. It is the attitude, the relation, the point of the compass, that is the whole body and gist of what he has to teach us; in this, the details are comprehended; out of this the specific precepts issue, and by this, and this only, can they be explained and applied. And thus, to learn aright from any teacher, we must first of all, like a historical artist, think ourselves into sympathy with his position and, in the technical ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... crop like clover, land can be made, and kept productive continuously. In the use of commercial fertilizers, there should be a constant and intelligent effort to keep up a supply of all the essential ingredients. Wood-ashes is a specific for strawberries. I have never found any one thing so good, and yet it is substantially but one thing, potash, and I should remember that the plant also requires nitrogen, which guano, or some form of animal manure, would furnish; lime, which is best applied to the strawberry in the ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... other part of the globe, may be said to be paved with facts, the essence of which it is necessary to acquire before knowledge of this special zone can be brought to even a provisional exactitude. On the face of it, polar research may seem to be specific and discriminating, but it must be remembered that an advance in any one of the departments into which, for convenience, science is artificially divided, conduces to the advantage of all. Science is a homogeneous whole. If we ignore the facts contained in one part of the world, surely we are hampering ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... done by insisting upon too minute and specific interpretation. But, at the same time, we must not forget that, from the very beginning of the Jewish Revelation, from the time when the seven-branched candlestick was appointed for the Tabernacle, right down to the day when the Apocalyptic Seer ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... as Chairman of each Sub-committee a member of the General Committee who is particularly fitted to the specific work assigned to her Sub-committee. The special abilities of the members of the General Committee should be taken into careful consideration and so used in the arrangement of the Sub-committees as to secure the ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney

... ever I succeeded in persuading Mdlle. X. C. V. to make use of my specific I would use nothing but honey, so the composition of the aroph would not be a very complicated process. But if one point was then plain and simple, another remained to be solved, and its solution gave me some difficulty. I should have to pass several nights in continual ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... plenty of them, for the rules of the British Board of Trade and of Lloyds are very specific and require enough compartments to insure floating of the ship though several may be flooded. She also had doors in the bulkheads, and probably plenty of them, for she was enormous and needed easy access from one compartment to another. It will probably never be known how FEW ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... the learner is capable of conceiving to be one whole; begins with the classification of all its words, according to certain grand differences which make the several parts of speech; then proceeds to divide further, according to specific differences and qualities, till all the classes, properties, and relations, of the words in any intelligible sentence, become obvious and determinate: and he to whom these things are known, so that he can see at a glance what is the construction of each word, and whether ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... the troubled and hostile condition of almost all those foreign countries which used to be the best customers for our manufactures, and the two or three preceding defective harvests. The first of these was not of a nature to call for, or perhaps admit of, direct and specific legislative interference. It originated in a vicious system of contagious private speculation, which has involved many thousands of those engaged in it in irredeemable, shall we add deserved, disgrace and ruin—and which had better, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... course every individual woman of consequence. By the abolition of polygamy, it added to their consequence again, by raising them from the rank of slaves to that of the companions of men. This importance it increased again by the inculcation of specific duties towards them, and by the doctrine, that, as all, without exception, were equally accountable for their actions, and the Divine Being was no respecter of persons, so all, whether men or women, were of equal importance in ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... extent; which it appears to them is impossible without getting rid of the fragments of the old constitution that remain. This is the destructive party; a party with distinct and intelligible principles. They seek a specific for the evils of our social system in the general suffrage ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... general a twisted strand of cotton, flax, wool, silk, etc., spun out to considerable length, is called thread. In a specific sense, thread is a compound cord consisting of two or more yarns firmly united by twisting. Thread is used in some kinds of weaving, but its principal use is for sewing, for which purpose it is composed of either silk, cotton, or flax. Thread ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... who admit that their League must do more than issue edicts, that their mechanism must function, are ignoring the specific technical aspect of the war methods whose use we wish to limit. This matter ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... cited adds as an explanation of the nature of that element- language: "It is composed of Sounds, not words; of sounds, numbers and figures. He who knows how to blend the three, will call forth the response of the superintending Power" (the regent-god of the specific element needed). Thus this "language is that of incantations or of Mantras, as they are called in India, sound being the most potent and effectual magic agent, and the first of the keys which opens the door of communication between mortals and ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... that she is a type of the human soul. Specific scenes, though intensely dramatic, are entirely ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry

... of the General Assembly ordering relocation of the courthouse was not specific as to the site on which it would be built. Accordingly, in May 1790, the court appointed a commission to inspect a site near Ravensworth, within a mile of the crossroads at Price's Ordinary, and to negotiate for purchase of a two-acre parcel.[23] The commissioners' report was not ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... disorder—perhaps the plague itself. If your mother has any regard for you she will put all your medicines out of your reach. There are few known remedies against this frightful disease; and what few there are, must be adopted cautiously. My own specific ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... efforts have had a specific direction widely different, for the most part, from those of the majority of the American women, who have devoted themselves to the cause of the country and its defenders, few have been more actively and energetically employed, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... comfortably in my rooms, the northerly aspect of which exposed them to frequent gusts of wind (from which I had practically no protection in the form of heating appliances), and had barely got over the demoralising effect of dysentery, when I fell a victim to a specific Venetian complaint, namely a carbuncle on my leg, as the result of the extreme change of climate and of air. This happened just when I was intending to resume the second act, that had been so cruelly interrupted. The malady, which I had first regarded as slight, soon increased and became exceedingly ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... relation to one another, notably not in the relation of cause and effect, expressed in a natural law, which is presupposed in this instance. Potentialities are dispositions, and a disposition involves an order, as does also the passage from any specific potentiality into act. Thus the world, we are told, must ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... him specific directions and passed on. He followed grimly, like fate, whose agent he was, though long delayed. When he reached the Adlergasse he looked for a sign. He came to a stop in front of the dingy shop of the clock-mender. He went inside, and the ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... along happily in their new nest without a budget, and without specific agreements as to expense. But they were business girls. So they sat right down and decided every point, modifying each, under trial, to a workable proposition. Then they stuck to it and ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various

... purge, crude iron-filings are specific in this disease in children, and the worms are destroyed by the returning acrimony and quantity of the bile. A blister on the region of the liver. Sorbentia, as ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... was that day to June. The anxiety in times of war for the women who wait at home is vague because they are mercifully ignorant of the dangers their loved ones run, but a specific issue that involves death to those loved ones has a special and poignant terror of its own. June knew her father's plan, the precise time the fight would take place, and the especial danger that was Hale's, for she knew that young ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... superfluous to say that she patched and mended the household garments, washed the most of things washable, sewed the sewable, darned the sock, and, generally, did-up the whole McKay family. When not engaged in definite or specific work, she had a chronic sock-knitting which helped to fill up and round off the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... himself. She was on those occasions the White Lady in earnest. Her art had warmth indeed, but the coldness and aloofness of exalted purity put her beyond the zone of desire; a snowy peak, distinct to the eye, but inaccessible. When they were done with greetings Arthur brought up a specific subject. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... what the public wants; the specific newspaper prints what its editor thinks the class of readers to which it caters wants. If he gauges his public right, he succeeds; if he does not, he fails. You can no more make the people read a newspaper they do not want ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... such minorities must be the special concern of the League of Nations. Take the case of Rumania, for example. In order to unite her people she must annex some compact masses of aliens which, in certain cases at least, have been deliberately planted within ethnological frontiers for a specific purpose. The settlements of Magyars in Transylvania, who, under Hungarian rule, were permitted to exploit their Rumanian neighbors without let or hindrance, will not willingly surrender the privileges they have so long enjoyed and ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... busy weeks in London, and found that hard work was the best specific for the low spirits from which he had suffered during his stay in Scotland. He heard regularly from Elizabeth, and her letters, though not long, and somewhat coldly expressed, gave him complete satisfaction. He noticed with some surprise that she spoke ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... attack of gastric fever, which for nine days rendered her recovery almost hopeless. Then came the plague of boils, and soon after a species of intolerable itch, called the coorash. I adopted for this latter a specific I had found successful with the mange in dogs, namely, gunpowder, with one fourth sulphur added, made into a soft paste with water, and then formed into an ointment with fat. It worked like a charm ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... With these specific instructions, I was ordered to rejoin my company; and Lieutenant Beauregard was directed to take general charge of the movements of Smith's brigade. When Beauregard and I reached the top of the second ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith

... argument being sufficient to prove that, namely the deliberate ignoring of the fact that Parliament had been called into being by virture of article 53 of the Nanking Provisional Constitution and that under article 54 its specific duty was to act as a grand constitutional conference to draft and adopt the Permanent Constitution, article 55 furthermore giving Parliament the right summarily to amend the Provisional Constitution before the Promulgation of the permanent instrument, ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... indicates a definiteness and specific order in heredity, and therefore in variation. This order cannot by the nature of the case be dependent on Natural Selection for its existence, but must be a consequence of the fundamental chemical and physical nature of living things. The study ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... the land area of the world. To this some increase must be made to allow for similar materials concealed in the ocean, principally around the continental margins. If we add 10 per cent. and assign a specific gravity of 2.5 we get as the mass of the sediments 64 x 1016 tonnes. But as this is about 67 per cent. of the parent igneous rock—i.e. the average igneous rock from which the sediments are derived—we conclude that the primary ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... under which the nation has been of late sinking from prosperity into distress? The defect is not in the Reform Bill, but in the very nature of government. On the physical condition of the great body of the people, government acts not as a specific, but as an alternative. Its operation is powerful, indeed, and certain, but gradual and indirect. The business of government is not directly to make the people rich; and a government which attempts more than this is precisely the government which is likely to perform less. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... moisture. In this case therefore, and still more (as we have seen) during the production of new stations from the elevation of the land, an island would be a far more fertile source, as far as we can judge, of new specific forms than a continent. The new forms thus generated on an island, we might expect, would occasionally be transported by accident, or through long-continued geographical changes be enabled to emigrate ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... balcony, heard the councilor say good-day, turned his head toward the sound, and saw him standing there nodding, his arms full of empty flowerpots. They spoke of this and that, and the councilor began to explain, as one might put it, that the old specific distinction between the various kinds of trees had been abolished by grafting, and that for his part he did not like this at all. Then Camilla slowly approached wearing a brilliant glaring blue shawl. Her ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... any very specific rules on this subject, some modes of economizing time will be suggested. The most powerful of all agencies, in this matter, is, that habit of system and order, in all our pursuits, which has been already pointed out. It is probable, that ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... specific. How I should like to know why exactly you are out of spirits, and whether dear Mr. Martin is sad too. Robert and I have had some domestic emeutes, because he hates some imperial names; yet he confessed to me last night that the excessive and contradictory ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... just then, and he went out reluctantly. No sooner was he gone than the Squire, with great difficulty, stretched himself over to a cabinet by the bedside, unlocked it, and took out a small bottle. It contained a gout specific, against whose use he had been repeatedly warned by his regular physician, but whose warning he now cast to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... the one of these three classes to which any particular insect belongs, and for specific instructions on the application of a remedy, the reader is advised to write to his State Entomologist or to the U.S. Bureau of Entomology at Washington, D.C. The letter should state the name of the tree affected, together with the character of the injury, ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... the contract made out, executed it, and then, in high glee, Bok took it home to show it to his mother. He had reckoned without question upon her approval, only to meet with an immediate and decided negative to the proposition as a whole, general and specific. She argued that the theatrical business was not for him; and she saw ahead and pointed out so strongly the mistake he was making that he sought Miss Davenport the next day and told her of his mother's stand. The actress suggested that she ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... present activity of inquiry, and the rapid progress of scientific research. The topics treated are the same. The first seven lectures of the course deal with thermometric heat, expansion, combustion, conduction, specific and latent heat, and the relation of this force to mechanical processes; while the remaining five treat of radiant heat, the law and conditions of its movement, its influence upon matter, its relations to other forces, terrestrial ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... will kill. For bleeding and blistering, and easy bravado, (Not to speak of hot water,) he passes Sangrado. He stickles at nothing, from simple phlebotomy, As our friend Sidney said, to a case of lithotomy: And I'll venture to say, that this latest specific, When taken, will prove to be no soporific. Might I just hint how happy 'twould make me to be Sole Agent down here ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... held that the United States was bound to set the peoples of the conquered territory free. To be sure the specific pledge contained in the joint resolution of April 20, 1898, applied to Cuba alone, but, it was argued, since the people of the Philippines had also been fighting for liberty, and since they had come so near to winning their independence from ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... not very poor. The crops were good, the wages not bad, and he thought the people were very contented. Belturbet is another quiet little town, larger than Clones I should say. Like Clones it has no newspaper, no specific industry, but depends ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... Giles's; and definite penalties must be attached to definite acts, the conditions of political life not admitting of any other method of dealing with them. But it is absurd to argue from such rude necessity that each act therefore, by whomsoever committed, is of specific culpability. The act is one thing, the moral guilt is another. There are many cases in which, as Butler again allows, if we trace a sinner's history to the bottom, the guilt attributable to himself appears ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... good for any crop. For potatoes (that is Irish potatoes) I regard it as a specific manure. The quantity I apply is 3/4 lbs. to every ten yards put in the furrows as recommended for corn and tobacco, and then covered over about one inch with earth drawn from the sides of the furrows. After this ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... of view, is that it fails to define what "characters" one would get in the one-half that came from one's parents, or the one-fourth from one's grandparents. The whole of our inheritance is not composed of these indefinitely made up fractional parts. We are interested rather in those more specific traits or characters, mental or physical, which, in the Mendelian view, are structural and functional units, making up a mosaic rather than a blend. The laws of heredity are concerned with the precise behavior, during a series of generations, of these specific ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... One nut I had been willing to accept; a second, I rejected utterly. A cocoa-nut does not come slinging along on a windless evening, making an angle of about fifteen degrees with the horizon; cocoa-nuts do not fall on successive nights at the same hour and spot; in both cases, besides, a specific moment seemed to have been chosen, that when the lamp was just carried out, a specific person threatened, and that the head of the family. I may have been right or wrong, but I believed I was the mark of some intimidation; believed the missile was a stone, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... them under the adverb (epirrhma), as one of the eight recognized parts of speech. The Stoics, taking their stand on Aristotle's definition of rhma, could not but regard the infinitive as rhma, because it implied time, past, present, or future, which was with them recognized as the specific characteristic of the verb (Zeitwort). But they went further, and called forms such as graphein, etc., rhma, in the highest or most general sense, distinguishing other verbal forms, such as graphei, etc., by the names of katgorma or sumbama. ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... day I set out for Elton, and by ten o'clock at night reached my uncle's house. I found the old gentleman looking just as I had left him three years before, complaining a little of gout in the left foot—praising his old specific, port-wine—abusing his servants for robbing him—and drinking the Duke of Wellington's health every night after supper; which meal I had much pleasure in surprising him at on my arrival—not having eaten since my departure ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... pocket. At intervals, however, the post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia—or Mrs. Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name of his specific. These documents my neighbour would also pocket without a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton

... time-sense is totally absent in animals, and that it belongs only to man, as one of the attributes of his mental superiority. However, many facts go to show that animals have not only a specific time-sense, but also a sense of personal identity which ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... poets, were but attempts to carry the war into the enemy's territory. Further, there must have been a more direct presentation of the Jewish cause by way of public lectures and popular addresses in the synagogues. Nevertheless, the specific answers to the charges advanced by the anti-Jewish scribblers are now to be found most fully stated in Josephus. In his day the literary campaign against the Jewish name was as remorseless as the military campaign that had ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... suffering, loving, each in the circumstances of their own time—are the earnests of our own latent destiny and powers, the ability of the Christian to "grow taller in Christ."[42] These powers—that ability—are factually present in the race, and are totally independent of the specific religious system which may best awaken, nourish, and ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... easier to quote instances offhand of friends who had missed their proper vocation in life than of those who were placed exactly in the position best suited to their taste and capacity. The failures in life are so obviously in excess of those who may be said to have succeeded that specific illustrations of the fact are ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... enlightened Patriot will impute to me a wish to disparage the characters of men high in authority, or to detract from the estimation which is fairly due to them. My purpose is to guard against unreasonable expectations. That specific knowledge,—the paramount importance of which, in the present condition of Europe, I am insisting upon,—they, who usually fill places of high trust in old governments, neither do—nor, for the most part, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... hardly necessary to say that the sublime within us was instantly killed. It would be fortunate, indeed, for the afflicted, if the specific of this charlatan St. George were half as destructive to the intestinal dragons he promises to destroy. Then we turned away to the glen down which the torrent plunged. And there, at the foot of the fall, in the midst of the boiling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... useful in prepayment of parcel post." These high values were, of course, intended to be used in making up relatively large amounts of postage. They were not issued to be used in prepayment of any specific rates though a study of the postal rates of the period show that the postage on a parcel weighing up to one pound sent to the United Kingdom would require a 20c stamp, while a 2 lb. parcel sent to Japan would take the 50c denomination. ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... The only specific mention of serious illness was during his stay in the Soudan as Governor-General, when the chest pains became acute. These were at length traced to an enlarged liver, and perhaps the complaint was aggravated by excessive smoking. In the desert, far removed from medical aid, he ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... CAUSE: Specific infection, the action of which is favored by insanitary conditions, irregular feeding, or permitting the colt to nurse when the mother is overheated or out ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... much smaller than the European form, being described as more like a large rat than a rabbit. Its colour is very different from its European relatives; it has curious nocturnal habits; it is exceedingly wild and untamable. Most remarkable of all, and most conclusive as to specific difference, Mr. Bartlett, the highly skilled head keeper of the London Zoological Gardens, utterly failed to induce the two males which were brought over to those gardens to associate with or to breed with the females ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... accuse Mr. Du Maurier of lingering too complacently on the lines in question; of having a certain ideal of "lissome" elongation to which the promiscuous truth is sometimes sacrificed. But in fact this artist's P truth never pretends to be promiscuous; it is avowedly select and specific. What he depicts is so preponderantly the "tapering" people that the remainder of the picture, in a notice as brief as the present, may be neglected. If his dramatis personae are not all the tenants of drawing-rooms, they are represented at least ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... but which, with Europeans, are objects of horror and disgust. Before quitting Tchagan-Kouren, we had bought in a chemist's shop a few sapeks'-worth of mercury. We now made with it a prompt and specific remedy against the lice. We had formerly got the receipt from some Chinese; and, as it may be useful to others, we think it right to describe it here. You take half an ounce of mercury, which you mix with old tea-leaves ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... she cried. "Don't lift a finger till we are sure your specific gravity is all right." And then she pinched me to see if I was dense enough, because the atmosphere is heavier or lighter or something here than ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... that Mr. Malthus has proceeded on the misconception you state, what is the specific injury which has thence ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... I shall draw from this may, at first sight, appear a mere sophism; but upon the least examination will be found solid and satisfactory. I say then, that since we may suppose, but never can conceive a specific deference betwixt an object and impression; any conclusion we form concerning the connexion and repugnance of impressions, will not be known certainly to be applicable to objects; but that on the other hand, whatever conclusions of this kind we form ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... stipulations of the treaty; while his grace has violated the same in so many ways, principally in making traffic, on behalf of Nova Espanha, of gold and drugs from this region within our demarcation—a thing forbidden in specific terms in the treaty. This does not harmonize with what his grace says about stress of weather and the lack and necessity of ships—for one who has been engaged in traffic knows the remedy for such cases, and his grace did traffic in our gold and drugs, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... specific as to your reasons. Your letter and your petition were instrumental in persuading the Committee to a complete change of policy. This should not be without ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... very day that Bell's application for a patent went into the United States Patent Office, a caveat was filed there by Elisha Gray, of Chicago, covering the specific idea of transmitting speech and reproducing it in a telegraphic circuit "through an instrument capable of vibrating responsively to all the tones of the human voice, and by which they are rendered audible." Out of this incident arose a struggle ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... McKenzie has been abused in the columns of the Japanese press with a violence which, in the absence of any reasoned controversy, indicated a last resource. In answer to his specific charges, only one ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... the sick bay cabin's emergency treatment accessories, gentle as their action was, might have been designed for the specific purpose of keeping the most violent of prisoners immobilized—let alone one with a terrible knife wound in him. At the angle along which the knife had driven in and up below the ribs, an ordinary man would have been dead in seconds. But it was very evident now that Maulbow was no ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz

... of course, to be expected. Right regulation of the actions of so complex a being as man, living under conditions so complex as those presented by a society, evidently forms a subject-matter unlikely to admit of specific statements throughout its ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... this very clear: I am open, as I have said repeatedly, to the best ideas of concerned members of both parties. I have no special brief for any specific approach, even in our own bill, except this: if you send me legislation that does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can never be taken away, you will force me to take this pen, veto the legislation, and we'll come right ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... think if you have any right to examine it. As you believe him to be a man of honour, what right have you to doubt his honour in this instance? Who is his accuser? An anonymous scoundrel who has brought no specific charge against him. If there were any such, wouldn't the girl's parents have come forward? He is not called upon to rebut, nor you to entertain an anonymous accusation; and as for believing him guilty because a girl of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the directions of Holy Writ, in regard to the female dress, should distinctly take note of this difference between the higher and the lower beauty which we find in the works of Plato. The Apostle gives no rule, no specific costume, which should mark the Christian woman from the Pagan; but says, 'whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... nothing to do, and his naturally excitable mind fired by an addition of stimulant, if the victim escapes, it is by miracle. Hundreds are plundered yearly in this systematic way: nor, if at all troublesome, does the affair end here; for these gamblers are no half-measure men; they have a ready specific to silence noisy pigeons, and are right prompt in ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... that is not to be despised, since it will enable me to do more good than at present I have it in my power to do. But there is one thing I care for still more, and that is, to redeem my father's memory from reproach. In the last letter he ever wrote he made a specific statement, which this lawyer declares to be false. The evidence of his clerk will hurl ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... its romantic poets—that is, poets who sing the dreams and ideals of life, and whose songs seem to be written naturally, spontaneously, as from a full heart [Footnote: For specific examples of formal and romantic poetry see the comparison between Addison and Wordsworth below, under "Natural vs Formal Poetry", Chapter VII]—but in the eighteenth century they were completely overshadowed by formal versifiers who made poetry by rule. At that time the imaginative verse ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... the remembrance of Parry's expedition into Lancaster Sound, mention is made of the prize for crossing a meridian at higher than the seventy-seventh parallel. Here the specific meridian is left out, which is not very informative. In the French version, it is the 170th meridian, which is clearly wrong. The Ward and Lock translation changes it to the 117th meridian. Historically, the prize ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... in her sister's innocence; when angry, she only tried to provoke Monica into a full explanation of the mystery, so insoluble by unaided conjecture. And Monica, say what she might, repaid this confidence with profound gratitude. Strangely, she had come to view herself as not only innocent of the specific charge brought against her, but as a woman in every sense maligned. So utterly void of significance, from her present point of view, was all that had passed between her and Bevis. One reason for this lay in the circumstance that, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... melancholy thus to see the scanty patrimony of this people squandered on worthless objects, or dissipated in efforts necessarily fruitless. The action of Congress at its last session, in authorizing the diversion of sums appropriated under treaty stipulations to other specific uses, at the discretion of the President and with the consent of the Indians, is a step in the right direction. But the time has come for a complete and comprehensive fiscal scheme, looking to the realization from Indian lands of the largest possible avails, and their ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... of prisoners, as to their crimes, affords an interesting subject. It will be largely found that the wrong doing of each is of a specific character rather than a general. Thus that of one is simply in the line of murder; that of another, robbery; of a third, stealing, or picking pockets, acting the burglar, assaulting female character, or of whatever sort. Then, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... pestilence were instruments in the hands of God with which to gain the love and worship of mankind; to find the cure for the disease was to take the punishment from the Church. No one tries to cure the ague with prayer because quinine has been found to be altogether more reliable. Just as soon as a specific is found for a disease, that disease is left out of the list of prayer. The number of diseases with which God from time to time afflicts mankind is continually decreasing, because the number of diseases that ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... or Hypochondriac, which is but a fashionable name for Madness." Bernard Mandeville, the Dutch physician and author of The Fable of the Bees, seems to have understood perfectly well that hypochondriasis is a condition encompassing any number of diseases and not a specific and readily definable ailment; a condition, moreover, that hovers precariously and bafflingly in limbo between mind and body, and he stressed this as the theme of his Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysteric Passions, Vulgarly Call'd the Hypo in Men and Vapours in Women (1711). ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill

... otherwise than by an amply protracted treatment of cure. Yet it is only quite lately that we have gained our knowledge of a proper use of the drug; and this accounts for the great mortality long after its specific effects had been recognized by the profession. It was given both inefficiently and insufficiently. It was sold at a prohibitive price. The country people were distrustful; so-and-so had taken it for three or four days; he had improved, yes; but the fever was ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... is a generic property of man that he is mortal, which is a consequence of his animality. It is a specific property of man that he is progressive, which is a ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... benefits without knowing it, but no man can bestow them without knowing it. Many sick persons have been cured by chance circumstances, which do not therefore become specific remedies; as, for instance, one man was restored to health by falling into a river during very cold weather, as another was set free from a quartan fever by means of a flogging, because the sudden terror turned his attention into a new ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... Order, Generic and Specific Characters, according to the celebrated Linnaeus; their Places of Growth, ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 3 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... then, clear that no specific aesthetic pleasure need be sought. The very phrase, indeed, is a misnomer, since all pleasure is qualitatively the same, and differentiated only by the specific activities which it accompanies. It is also to be noted that those writers on aesthetics who have dwelt most on aesthetic pleasure ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... "medicine men," and, though they are aware of the existence of healing herbs, they do not know their special virtues or the manner of using them. Dried and pounded bear's liver is their specific, and they place much reliance on it in colic and other pains. They are a healthy race. In this village of 300 souls, there are no chronically ailing people; nothing but one case of bronchitis, and some cutaneous maladies among ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... Caulaincourt full powers to do everything necessary "to keep the negotiation alive, and save the capital." But the Duke of Vicenza durst not act immediately on a document so loosely worded, and sent back once more to beg for a specific detail of the Emperor's purposes. Napoleon had his headquarters at Nogent, on the Seine, some leagues below Troyes, when the despatch reached him, on the evening of the 8th of February; and his counsellors unanimously urged him to make use of this, probably last, opportunity. They at length prevailed ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... Voice.—Hoarseness results from some affection of the vocal cords: it may be simple laryngitis, some specific cause such as tuberculosis or syphilis, or some condition which prevents the proper approximation of the cords, as in tumours and certain forms of paralysis. Huskiness of voice occurring in a middle-aged person, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... and stoves are lighted for their accommodation during winter, and all this gratis.—Now, before these objects of art were collected here, they were distributed, some in churches, and some in Government palaces. To see the first, required a specific introduction to the owner; to see the second, application to the attendants of the churches became necessary, and for both these you were required to pay fees to the servants and church-attendants, who are always impatient to take ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... force, for they realized the importance of this test case. It was not the agent at Sintaluta they were fighting, but the railway itself; it was not this specific instance of unjust car distribution that would be settled, but all other like infringements along the line. The very efficacy of the Grain Act itself ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... speech of furtive men and wise. A receptivity, sensitized to a high degree by the inspiration of new adventure, absorbed these impressions. The faithful pocket-ledger was filling rapidly with notes and phrases, brisk and trenchant, set down with no specific purpose; almost mechanically, in fact, but destined to future uses. Mallory, himself no mean connoisseur of the tumultuous and flagrant city, would perhaps have found matter foreign to his expert apprehension could he ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... When specific training is first urged for specialized work, there always is opposition. The outgoing generation remembers the opposition to specialized training for law, medicine, and engineering, to say nothing of farming, school teaching and business. But in ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... need for, and the influence of, a worthy literary effort expressed in the various vernaculars of India. The growing host of readers in the Christian communities and among the non-Christians is a loud cry for missionary consecration to this specific work. ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... bag of sand into a new house, so as to precede the proprietor in possession, was formerly deemed essential to ensure prosperity to the person changing his abode. To steal a black cat, and bury it alive, is in the Irish Highlands, considered as a specific for a disorder in cattle, termed "blacklegs," ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... PDP-3 through a tape control (TC). This tape is read or written in IBM 729I format. Two hundred characters, each having 6 bits plus a parity bit, are written on each inch of tape and the tape moves at 75 inches/sec. The tape control has the job of connecting a specific unit to the PDP-3 and is a switch. It also has the function of controlling the format of information that is read or written on tape. In-out class commands instruct TC to the type of information ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation

... myself also and without trying to remind you of how absolutely conformable it is to everything that man does in this world. The great richness of nature, the great richness of life, comes when we understand that behind every specific action of man there is some one of the more elemental and primary forces of the universe that are always trying to express themselves. There is nothing that man does that finds its beginning within itself, ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks

... following note appears as a footnote to this section without specific reference to any ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society

... persecution here. We are in a condition to judge of the merits of the persecutors and of the persecuted: I do not say the accusers and accused; because, in all the furious declamations of the atheistic faction against these men, not one specific charge has been made upon any one person of those who suffered in their massacre or by their decree ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... What the Tobacco-Parliament's specific insinuations and deliberations were, in this alarming interim, no Hansard gives us a hint. Faint and timid they needed, at first, to be; such unfavorable winds having risen, blowing off at a sad rate the smoke of that abstruse Institution.—"JARNI-BLEU!" snuffles ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle



Words linked to "Specific" :   particularized, species, medicament, unique, nonspecific, circumstantial, precise, generality, medical specialty, proper, general, medicine, limited, medicinal drug, ad hoc, particularised, medication, specialised, pathology, fact, specialized, special, specified, peculiar



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