specificity.

1. The degree to which a description, claim or requirement is clearly focused on a particular thing rather than left general.

2. The proportion of genuinely negative cases that a test correctly identifies as negative.

3. The selectiveness with which a molecule or biological process recognizes or acts on particular targets.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• specificity of a claim
• greater specificity

On the page

Greater specificity made the claim easier to evaluate against the records.

The reviewer requested specificity about the population to which the conclusion applied.

Usage notes

Primary category: science / research / methodology. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: methodology, measurement, causation, evaluation. Disciplines: research, statistics, scientific reasoning. Commonness: moderately common.