Word.ws English Dictionary

nonspecific

nonspecific adjective: not specific to one possible cause; caused by any of various possible causes.

Adjective

nonspecific (not comparable)

  1. Not specific to one possible cause; caused by any of various possible causes.
    • See also: nonspecific symptom, specificity
    Antonyms:
    pathognomonic
  2. Not specific to one pathogen; affecting multiple strains or species of pathogen.
  3. Not known to be caused by any specific pathogen.
  4. Not caused by previous infection or vaccination, and/or affecting more than one antigen.
  5. That does not just stain one type of tissue.

Synonyms of nonspecific

Antonyms

Forms of nonspecific

alternative formnon-specific

Origin of nonspecific

From non- + specific.

Words formed from nonspecific

Questions about nonspecific

What does nonspecific mean?
Nonspecific means not specific to one possible cause; caused by any of various possible causes.
What part of speech is nonspecific?
Nonspecific is an adjective.

Words near nonspecific in the dictionary

  1. nonspecialized
  2. nonspecializing
  3. nonspecialty
  4. nonspecie
  5. nonspecies
  6. nonspecific
  7. nonspecifically
  8. nonspecification
  9. nonspecificity
  10. nonspecified
  11. nonspeckled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nonspecific (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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