Specify

ˈspɛsɪˌfaɪ

verb

to state explicitly or in detail

The word 'specify' comes from the Latin word 'speci(ficare)', meaning 'to make a specific mention of'. When you specify something, you provide clear and precise details or instructions, ensuring there is no room for ambiguity or misunderstanding.

And to that friend I say, ‘During the three-quarters of an hour that the struggle continued, I watched the convulsions and the death of Madame de Saint-Méran, and am thoroughly convinced that not only did her death proceed from poison, but I could also specify the poison.’ ” “Can it be possible?” “The symptoms are marked, do you see?—sleep broken by nervous spasms, excitation of the brain, torpor of the nerve centres.

Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo

To Him That Was Crucified My spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you, I do not sound your name, but I understand you, I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also, That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession, We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times, We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies, Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men, We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted, We hear the bawling and din, we are reach’d at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side, They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade, Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras, Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass

He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Only that, strictly speaking, Mrs. Ferrars in her letter mentioned a person—she didn’t actually specify a man.

Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

It is impossible for me here to enter on details, but I may specify a few of the points of difference.

Charles Darwin

The Origin of Species

Don Quixote, propped up against the trunk of a beech or a cork tree—for Cide Hamete does not specify what kind of tree it was—sang in this strain to the accompaniment of his own sighs: When in my mind I muse, O Love, upon thy cruelty, To death I flee, In hope therein the end of all to find.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote