Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

specimen

[spes-uh-muhn]

noun

a part or an individual taken as exemplifying a whole mass or number; a typical animal, plant, mineral, part, etc.

(in medicine, microbiology, etc.) a sample of a substance or material for examination or study: a urine specimen; a tissue specimen.

a particular or peculiar kind of person.

Origin:
1600–10; < Latin: mark, example, indication, sign, equivalent to speci-, stem of specere to look, regard + -men noun suffix denoting result or means

Synonyms
1. type, model, pattern. See example.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Link To specimen

:10

:09

:08

:07

:06

:05

:04

:03

:02

:01

Specimen is always a great word to know.

So is doohickey. Does it mean:

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Example Sentences

In this lesson, students practice observing and recording the details of a specimen.

The new system means that museum staff can set up the microscope on request to let taxonomists look at the specimen over the web.

There is no possibility that the new specimen was a two-headed species, he adds.

EXPAND

In this lesson, students practice observing and recording the details of a specimen.

The new system means that museum staff can set up the microscope on request to let taxonomists look at the specimen over the web.

There is no possibility that the new specimen was a two-headed species, he adds.

Say you had a natural history museum specimen in your hand, and you put a little tiny food fish in its mouth.

We can only place better ethical practices in specimen collection and use careful methods of procurement.

Just find a big one, and your specimen will be registered as the biggest until somebody finds one bigger.

The reason why is attributable to a beautiful specimen discovered half a century ago.

The health care provider does the rectal examination and collects the specimen.

Spotting such radio pulses would be more evidence that this specimen is destined to become a millisecond pulsar.

The hip bones were also fused, a condition usually seen only in adults-suggesting the specimen was not a baby.

Sometimes scientific discoveries are hidden in museum specimen drawers and old journal articles.

It's not pocket change, but for a unique specimen that's a steal for a private owner.

Good shade or specimen tree for larger gardens or parks, since it requires space for its invasive surface root system.

Finelli stresses that the specimen repository is loath to share your genetic info.

The cells of the specimen are stained with dyes and then examined under the microscope.

Something is fungible when any one single specimen is indistinguishable from any other.

Finding preserved soft tissue is unheard of in a dinosaur-age specimen.

Armstrong used tongs and a scoop to fill two specimen boxes with rocks and soil.

On the net is a plastic funnel, attached to a specimen cup, and a float.

White trunk and branches and open crown make it a good specimen tree.

The better specimen had a small, short skull at the end of a ridiculously long neck consisting of thirty five vertebrae.

These specimen books nourish and replenish, inform and delight.

Lola was an exotic nouveau-riche specimen who taught her daughter the power of a good story.

Webster also said that reports describing the specimen as both leathery and gelatinous were conflicting.

The samples were distinct, indicating that they were dealing with an authentic specimen.

His only physical evidence was the beak, collected from the remains of a stranded specimen that had recently washed ashore.

Japonicas make attractive specimen plants and espaliers.

That's because the quest for a name begins with a specimen, and a specimen is made of atoms, not bits.

The specimen is a juvenile female the size of a small monkey.

The blue ocean slug, a type of nudibranch, is a striking specimen with extraordinary hues that provide two types of camouflage.

Therefore, extinction is defined retrospectively, only after a period has elapsed without observing a living specimen.

In this particular specimen that process is missing a piece of bone measuring about an inch and a half square.

Because of its extravagant plumes it stands out too much as a single specimen or dotted here and there.

Grinnell recorded every possible piece of information about each specimen.

Scientists declared it a new species when the specimen was rediscovered last year.

As it says in the story, the damage done by low-energy impacts more closely resembled the damage in the specimen.

They went through archives and specimen collections.

And with a big, beautiful specimen aloe, that's a heartbreak.

As the robot looked at subsequent rocks, its confidence ratings improved with each specimen.

It's possible, but that specimen has been heavily reconstructed.

As vinyl verges on extinction, one album has emerged as the prime specimen of the species.

It turns out that this tree is also an urban specimen or rather has become one.

Each specimen has its own unique traits, and together the collection represents the vast.

If you want a specimen tree for a garden or patio focal point, look for interesting foliage or.

Scientists have said it could be the best preserved specimen of its type.

Second, preparators need to remove all water and fat from the specimen.

Though long-forgotten, this particular specimen was significant as its bones were lacerated by the teeth of a large shark.

His letter of resignation is a touching the dignified specimen of composition.

If a bone or specimen looked different enough from what was already known, then it deserved to be separated as a new species.

With the light on and the specimen you are viewing in focus, hold a blank piece of paper above the eyepiece.

But in the dim library, against oak specimen cases.

Scientists at the expo say they hope to use the specimen to uncover why mammoths went extinct.

While looking for other ants, he noticed an odd specimen wandering in leaf litter at dusk.

He took this photograph showing the flower lips of a wild specimen.

They would profusely thank the rich guy who bought the fossil specimen and never mention her.

It would be a wonderful tale if only it was true that these specimen horses were an offspring of the originals.

Then catch a slippery specimen for your desktop and send a froggy e-greeting to a friend.

How did they introduce the pigment gene into the eyes of color-blind specimen without any adjection.

Brooks of this city does not include a single specimen invented since the war.

Jiang had shown me one such specimen in his university office.

Oddly, the world has yet to see the first cloned stuffed animal-a taxidermy specimen sampled to make a spanking new creature.

Experts agree that human feces are not the forensic specimen of choice.

He captures a good female specimen and later kills a male specimen after a tempestuous chase and fight.

The blue ocean slug, a type of nudibranch, is a striking specimen with extraordinary hues that provide two.

Please dig more deeply into this subject with more historically accurate and precious specimen.

Type specimen books are the plumbing-parts catalogs of graphic design.

The specimen consists of a mostly complete skull with a bony crest on its forehead, and a partial skeleton.

So this article doesn't say what characteristics of the specimen identify it as a eutherian and why.

In fact, science centers rarely have any specimen collections at all.

Adding a brand of eyedrops to a urine specimen camouflages any trace of marijuana.

In a specimen of each type of dinosaur, the team happened upon a type of calcium-rich tissue called medullary bone.

Once you have obtained a decent specimen of stone, the rest is easy.

When one particularly nasty specimen called turtle weed.

In the center of the minute specimen of brain cells was a pink circle, known as a.

The new fossil specimen is an almost fully grown adult.

But finding such a complete snake fossil is rare, with only a half-dozen well-preserved specimen from this period.

The one prime specimen in this show is a figure of a child feeding her pet.

But more differences imply that a new specimen may belong to a new category altogether.

One of the new fish, the collared carpet shark, is so rare that the only known specimen was found in the belly of another shark.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

specimen (ˈspɛsɪmɪn)

—n
1.	a. an individual, object, or part regarded as typical of the group or class to which it belongs
	b. (as modifier): a specimen signature; a specimen page
2.	med a sample of tissue, blood, urine, etc, taken for diagnostic examination or evaluation
3.	the whole or a part of an organism, plant, rock, etc, collected and preserved as an example of its class, species, etc
4.	informal, derogatory often a person

[C17: from Latin: mark, evidence, proof, from specere to look at]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

specimen

1619, "pattern, model," from L. specimen "indication, mark, example, sign, evidence," from specere "to look at" (see scope (1)). Meaning "single thing regarded as typical of its kind" first recorded 1654.

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

specimen spec·i·men (spěs'ə-mən)
n.
A sample, as of tissue, blood, or urine, used for analysis and diagnosis.

Word Dynamo By Dictionary.com

Searching for specimen?
How many words do you actually know?

FIND OUT

camarasaur coercivity counterstain epistasis excuse exsiccatum

Matching Quote

"Every young sculptor seems to think that he must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of decent clothing."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

Partners:Word Bloglines Citysearch The Daily Beast Ask Answers Ask Kids Life123 Sendori Thesaurus

About Privacy Policy Terms of Use API Careers Advertise with Us Contact Us Help