Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “specificity” come from?

Specificity comes from French spécificité, derived from the French suffix -ité, which developed from Latin -itas and its accusative -itatem, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European -it-.

specificity (English): The state of being specific rather than general;...

Definitions

  1. The state of being specific rather than general;...

Ancestry of “specificity”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Englishspecificexplicit or definite; pertaining to a species;...
2Old Frenchspecifique—
3Latinspecificusspecific, particular
4Latinfaciō—
5Latin-toriumnominative neuter singular of -tōrius; accusative...
6Latin-tōrius—
7Latin-tor-er
8Proto-Italic-tōr—
9Proto-Indo-European-tōrDerives agent nouns from verbs, denoting someone...
10Proto-Indo-European-tor-s—

Words derived from “specificity”

  • nonspecificity
  • unspecificity
  • polyspecificity
  • monospecificity
  • multispecificity
  • neurospecificity
  • chemospecificity
  • serospecificity
  • heterospecificity
  • bispecificity
Every word from Proto-Indo-European -tor-s →