SPECIF'IC, SPECIF'ICAL, adjective

1. That makes a thing of the species of which it is designating the peculiar property of properties of a thing, which constitute its species, and distinguish it from other things. Thus we say, the specific form of an animal or a plant; the specific form of a cube or square; the specific qualities of a plant or a drug; the specific difference between an acid and an alkali; the specific distinction between virtue and vice. Specific difference is that primary attribute which distinguishes each species form one another.

2. In medicine, appropriate for the cure of a particular disease; that certainly cures or is less fallible than others; as a specific remedy for the gout. The Saratogs waters are found to be a specific remedy, or nearly so, for the cure of bilious complaints, so called.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER, in botany, a circumstance or circumstances distinguishing one species from every other species of the same genus.

SPECIFIC GRAVITY, in philosophy, the weight that belongs to an equal bulk of each body. [See Gravity.]

SPECIFIC NAME, in botany, is the trivial name as distinguished form the generic na, e. Specific name is now used for the name which, appended to the name of the genus, constitutes the distinctive name of the species; but it was originally applied by Linne to the essential character of the species, or the essential difference. The present specific names he at fist called the trivial names.

SPECIF'IC, noun In medicine, a remedy that certainly cures particular disease.