specimen Hear it!

specimen Definition

speci·men (spes′ə mən)

noun

  1. a part of a whole, or one individual of a class or group, used as a sample or example of the whole, class, or group; typical part, individual, etc.
  2. Informal a (specified kind of) individual or person an unsavory specimen
  3. Med. a sample, as of urine, sputum, or blood, for analysis

Etymology: L, a mark, token, example < specere, to see: see spy

specimen Synonyms

specimen

n.

individual, exemplar, part, unit; see example 1.

specimen Usage Examples

Preposition: of

  • urine: Please take a specimen of urine to your doctor's surgery tomorrow for testing.
  • feces: In some cases it may be necessary to collect specimens of feces for analysis to confirm the presence of a pathogenic organism.

Converse of object

  • preserve: The painting was based on a preserved specimen belonging to the great American artist J.J. Audubon, a close friend of Macgillivray's.
  • collect: Traveling the country in his private railroad carriage, his aim was to collect specimens of every British bird.

Adjective modifier

  • geological: It is a great pity we cannot get geological specimens.
  • pathological: The majority of pathological specimens from the museum were transferred to the Clinical Sciences Department of Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1985.
  • resected: The diameters of the resected specimens ranged from approximately 1.0 cm to 2.3 cm.
  • botanical: He retired in 1858; and after some traveling, spent the rest of his life collecting botanical specimens from around the world.
  • surgical: Tumor size was defined as maximum diameter of the tumor measured from the surgical specimen.

Modifies a noun

  • carp: The membership includes Old Bury Hill Lake, Temple Lake our new specimen carp lake.
  • thickness: At present, the specimen is not centrally loaded through the specimen thickness.
  • conifer: There are also some specimen conifers, planted in the 1800's by the estate landowner of the time.
  • lake: The membership includes Old Bury Hill Lake, Temple Lake our new specimen carp lake.
  • hunter: The largest tackle shop in the area it has a complete matchman's range; and specimen hunter 's requirements too.

Noun used with modifier

  • herbarium: We aim to database the majority of MOL's herbarium specimens of forest trees.
  • biopsy: A cell culture assay is a lab test performed on a biopsy specimen containing living cancer cells.
  • urine: The research will take the form of a blind evaluation of urine specimens provided by the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh.
  • sputum: The GP may arrange for sputum specimens to be sent to the laboratory.
  • cytology: THURSDAYS ONLY 9.15 Collect Cytology specimens from HHGH path lab, SACH path lab and transport to Cytology Dept, Watford General.
  • voucher: The difficulty of identification presented by this group means that all records must be confirmed with a voucher specimen.