Primary
''specie'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔
specie - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
specie (uncountable)
- Type or kind, in various uses of the phrase in specie.
- Money in the form of coins made from precious metal that has an intrinsic value; coinage.
- ✤ Antonym: paper
- ✤ I received one month’s pay in specie while on the march to Virginia, in the year 1781, and except that, I never received any pay worth the name while I belonged to the army.1
- ✤ ‘It was not money or specie he thought himself hunting!’2
- ✤ “Dick” Counterfly had absquatulated swiftly into the night, leaving his son with only a pocketful of specie and the tender admonition, “Got to ‘scram,’ kid — write if you get work.”3
Noun
specie (plural species)
- (hypercorrect) singular of species
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈspiːʃi/, /ˈspiːsi/
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
- Rhymes: -iːʃi, -iːsi
- (obsolete) IPA: /ˈspiːʃiː/, /ˈspiːʃi.iː/45
Etymology 1
Originally in the phrase in specie; from Latin speciē, ablative singular of species. Compare in kind.
Etymology 2
Back-formation from species (plural), the final “s” being misinterpreted as a plural ending.
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, “Ch. IX”, in A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier: ↩
1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 805: ↩
2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 8: ↩
Michaelis, Hermann; Jones, Daniel (1913), “‘spiːʃiː”, in A Phonetic Dictionary of the English Language (Sammlung Phonetischer Wörterbücher; 2), Hanover: Carl Meyer (Gustav Prior), →OCLC, page 392: “[-iiː]” ↩
James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Specie”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume IX, Part 1 (Si–St), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 545, column 3: “sp ī ·ʃi, sp ī ·ʃ ī, sp ī ·ʃi ī” ↩
Secondary
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