Other forms: specimens
A specimen is one example of something collected for careful study. A museum specimen, a soil specimen, collect specimens.
In medicine a specimen is a sample taken from a patient — a urine specimen, a blood specimen — and specimen bottle is the container. In natural history it is the individual animal, plant or fossil in the collection, and type specimen is the one a species is formally described from. It also means a form filled in as an example: a specimen signature. Informally, a fine specimen is said, half-jokingly, of an impressive person or animal.
1nounspecimenOne example collected for careful study.
“The specimen has been in the drawer since 1890.”
2nounsampleA sample taken from a patient.
“The specimen goes to the lab the same afternoon.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
specimen is an example for study.
Also accepted in games: sample
The Latin is to look at, the same looking behind species, a kind you tell apart by looking. A specimen is the one they took away to look at.
hooks ontospecies
Latin specimen meant a mark or example, from specere, to look at — the same verb behind spectacle, inspect and species. A specimen is literally something to look at, which is what a museum case is for.
Proto-Indo-European
*speḱ-
Latin
specimen — mark, sign, example
English, today
specimen
Built from
From Latin specimen (“mark, sign, example”), from speciō (“observe, watch”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA