specimen applies to any example or sample whether representative or merely existent and available.

medical A specimen is a small amount of something, such as urine or blood, taken for testing. You'll find specimens of most of the kind of letters you will need to write at every stage of the …

SPECIMEN meaning: 1 : something (such as an animal or plant) collected as an example of a particular kind of thing; 2 : a small amount or piece of something that can be tested or examined

A specimen is a small quantity of someone's urine, blood, or other body fluid which is examined in a medical laboratory, in order to find out if they are ill or if they have been drinking alcohol or …

something used as a sample (of a group or kind of something, especially an object to be studied or to be put in a collection).

There are 15 meanings listed in OED's entry for the word specimen, four of which are labelled obsolete, and one of which is considered derogatory. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, …

Medicine, Laboratory (in medicine, microbiology, etc.) a sample of a substance or material for examination or study: a urine specimen; a tissue specimen. a particular or peculiar kind of …

A specimen is a sample of something, like a specimen of blood or body tissue that is taken for medical testing. The noun specimen comes from the Latin word specere, meaning “to look.” …

Dec 26, 2025 · From Latin specimen (“mark, sign, example”), from speciō (“observe, watch”).

SPECIMEN definition: a part or an individual taken as exemplifying a whole mass or number; a typical animal, plant, mineral, part, etc. See examples of specimen used in a sentence.