specialty

• speciality (British / Commonwealth spelling)

From Old French specialte, especialte, from Latin specialitas.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈspɛʃəlti/

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specialty (plural specialties) (American spelling)

1. That in which one specializes; a chosen expertise or talent.

   They cook well overall, but their true specialty is pasta.

   • 1858, Charles Kingsley, “My Winter-Garden”, in Fraser’s Magazine‎, volume 57, page 410:

     Even men of boundless knowledge, like Humboldt, must have had once their speciality, their pet subject, or they would have, strictly speaking, no knowledge at all.

2. A product that originates in and is characteristic of a place.
3. (obsolete) Particularity.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

     The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
     And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
     Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.

4. A particular or peculiar case.
5. An attribute or quality peculiar to a species.
6. (law) A contract or obligation under seal; a contract by deed; a writing, under seal, given as security for a debt particularly specified.
   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     Let specialties be therefore drawne betweene vs,
     That couenants may be kept on either hand.

   • 1812, Joseph Chitty, A Treatise on Pleading, with a Collection of Practical Precedents, and Notes Thereon, 2nd American edition, edited by Thomas Day, New York, Volume 2, section 456, note c,

     […] in a plea to an action of debt on specialty, it is still necessary to show that the debt on which the judgment was recovered was a specialty, or to aver that the judgment was recovered before the defendant had notice of the plaintiff’s demand.

• specialist
• subspecialty
• subspecialist