despecificate

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From de- +‎ specificate, with de- acting as an intensifier.

Verb[edit]

despecificate (third-person singular simple present despecificates, present participle despecificating, simple past and past participle despecificated)

  1. (rare) To discriminate; to separate according to specific signification or qualities; to specificate; to desynonymize.
    • 1883, Charles William Bardeen, Verbal Pitfalls: A Manual of 1500 Words Commonly Misused:
      Inaptitude and ineptitude have been usefully despecificated, and only the latter now imparts folly.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for despecificate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)