specie
/ˈspiːʃi/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
obsolete/ˈspiːʃiː/
specie noun: type or kind, in various uses of the phrase in specie. Also the singular of species.
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.
- 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.1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, “Ch. IX”, in A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier
- ‘It was not money or specie he thought himself hunting!’1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 805
- Antonyms:
- paper
Also used as
specie is also the singular of species.
Antonyms of specie
Forms of specie
| plural | species |
|---|
Origin of specie
Originally in the phrase in specie; from Latin speciē, ablative singular of species. Compare in kind.
Back-formation from species (plural), the final “s” being misinterpreted as a plural ending.
Words formed from specie
Phrases with specie
Words that rhyme with specie
Questions about specie
- What does specie mean?
- Specie means type or kind, in various uses of the phrase in specie.
- What part of speech is specie?
- Specie is a noun.
- How do you pronounce specie?
- Specie is pronounced /ˈspiːʃi/.
- What is the plural of specie?
- The plural of specie is species.
Words near specie in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: specie (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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Cite this entry: “specie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/specie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.