Other forms: specifics
Specific means exactly this one and no other, clearly defined. A specific date, be more specific, specific instructions.
It is the opposite of general and of vague, and can you be more specific is one of the most useful questions in English. As a noun, the specifics means the details: let us get to the specifics. Note the very common phrase specific to, meaning found only in a particular case — a problem specific to older buildings. And in science, specific has technical meanings — specific gravity, specific heat — where it means per unit of something.
1adjectivespecificExactly this one, clearly defined.
“He gave a specific date and then changed it twice.”
2adjectivefoundFound only in a particular case.
“The fault is specific to the older models.”
3noundetailsThe details of something.
“Nobody had worked out the specifics.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
specific is a quality of precision.
Also accepted in games: particular
Latin specificus is species, a kind, plus facere, to make — making a kind. Something specific belongs to one kind rather than to the general run, and species and specific are the same word doing biology and grammar respectively.
Latin
specificus — specific, particular
Old French
specifique
English, today
specific
From Old French specifique, from Latin specificus (“specific, particular”), from Latin speciēs (“kind”) + -ific.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA