Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Concentration of one's efforts in a given occupation or field of study.
  • noun A field of specialization.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Devotion to a special branch or division of a general subject or pursuit; the characteristic pursuit or theme of a specialist; restriction to a specialty.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Devotion to a particular and restricted part or branch of knowledge, art, or science.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable speciality
  • noun uncountable The concentration of one's efforts upon a particular field of study

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the special line of work you have adopted as your career
  • noun the concentration of your efforts on a particular field of study or occupation

Etymologies

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Examples

  • My coaching specialism is law of attraction/manifestation/power of meditation and something I refer to as 100% intention/100% surrender.

    The Law of Attraction For Writers and Authors | The Creative Penn 2009

  • The loss of monopolies of knowledge and specialism is recorded in many fun books, like Parkinson's Law and The Peter Principle and One-up-man-ship.

    The End of the Work Ethic 1972

  • Some four-year courses that lead to a master's qualification will offer two years of general study followed by two in a specialism, which is ideal for those torn between, say, civil and electrical engineering.

    Engineering: general 2012

  • His specialism is a forensic, inevitably rather wonk-ish take on what to do next – underpinned by an optimism that defines just about all his answers.

    Hay festival: 'Climate change is a long struggle' 2010

  • She read a good deal of that kind of literature which may be defined as specialism popularised; writing which addresses itself to educated, but not strictly studious, persons, and which forms the reservoir of conversation for society above the sphere of turf and west-endism.

    New Grub Street 2003

  • His specialism is a forensic, inevitably rather wonk-ish take on what to do next - underpinned by an optimism that defines just about all his answers.

    The Guardian World News 2010

  • Against the Left, they affirm the centrality of narrative over and against the mind-numbing 'history of medicine' the particular 'specialism' that afflicted my 'O' Level history course - which is also an admission of my age.

    Archive 2009-05-01 Burke's Corner 2009

  • Against the Left, they affirm the centrality of narrative over and against the mind-numbing 'history of medicine' the particular 'specialism' that afflicted my 'O' Level history course - which is also an admission of my age.

    The renaissance of history Burke's Corner 2009

  • Big, shaggy, bearded, he was of the ancient and puissant type that, under the tidal wave of "specialism" is fast being swept towards the shores where live the last survivors of the Great Auk, the Dinosaur, and the Spread

    The Return of Peter Grimm Novelised From the Play David Belasco 1892

  • A graduate of photography, film and TV at Napier University, Spengler's specialism in stills photography meant a lot of "experimenting in the dark room with effects the old-school way" before she was able to explore digital media.

    BBC Builders: Vicky Spengler prototypes the future of TV Jemima Kiss 2010

Comments

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  • "By getting respected authors to write about their specialism Google hopes to start putting some of that information in better order." - BBC website, 15 Dec 2007

    December 15, 2007