sb. Pl. species; also 7–9 specieses. [a. L. speciēs (abl. sing. speciē SPECIE) appearance, form, kind, etc., f. specĕre to look, behold; hence also G. species, spezies. Within the Romanic languages the word is represented by It. specie, spezie, Sp. and Pg. especie (and especia), OF. espece (F. espèce) and espice (F. épice): see SPECE and SPICE sb.]
I. † 1. Appearance; outward form. Obs.
This sense is partly represented in the legal use of the word: see quots. 1651 and 1765–8 under SPECIFICATION 1 b.
1559. Morwyng, Evonym., 400. An other very good wine with the same species, but in other weight.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., IV. xliv. 338. A Divinity under their species, or likenesse.
b. Math. Of geometrical figures (see quot. 1842).
But in earlier quots. taken in sense 9.
1660. Barrow, Euclid, I. xxxii. All right-lined figures of the same species. Ibid., VI. vii. The angles C and F are not of the same species or kind.
1715. trans. Gregory’s Astron. (1726), I. 411. The Methods … for finding the Species and Position of the Orbit of the Earth.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXII. 322/2. Euclid … means by figures of the same species those which have the same form, whatever may be their size…. The word species is here used in its primitive sense of appearance.
1881. Casey, Sequel to Euclid, 37. A triangle is said to be given in species when its angles are given.
2. Eccl. The visible form of each of the elements of bread and wine used in the sacrament of the Eucharist; one or other of these elements.
Sometimes rendered by ‘form,’ but more commonly (through association with 9) by ‘kind’: see KIND sb. 13 b.
1579. Fulke, Heskins’s Parl., 84. They ceasse to be the body & bloud of Christ, when the species or kinds of bread and wine, are putrified or rotten.
1614. Brerewood, Lang. & Relig., 213. They deny the true body of Christ to be really in the sacrament of the eucharist under the species of bread and wine.
1637. Gillespie, Eng.-Pop. Cerem., III. ii. 34. Now that which was under the species, though in their conceit it was Christs body, yet it was indeed Bread.
1671. Woodhead, St. Teresa, II. xi. 97. As soon as I had communicated (the Species remaining yet as it were intire).
1737. Challoner, Cath. Chr. Instr., 99. This Ceremony of mixing a Particle of the Host with the Species of Wine in the Chalice.
1849. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, I. ii. 101. The sacramental species are no longer bread and wine, but have been changed into the Very Body and Blood of Christ Himself.
1880. Littledale, Plain Reasons, xxx. 78, note. Nearly all the recorded acts of irreverence towards the Holy Eucharist, historical or legendary, took place, in relation to the species of bread, and not with regard to the chalice, because it remains in the custody of the priest.
† 3. The outward appearance or aspect, the visible form or image, of something, as constituting the immediate object of vision. Obs. (Common in 17th cent.)
1598. R. Haydocke, trans. Lomatius, Pref. 4. The picture mooveth the eye, and that committeth the species and formes of the things seene to the memory.
1603. H. Crosse, Vertues Commw. (1878), 42. Our sight being remoued from the obiect and species of things.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. xliv. As if they had seen the very proper species and forme of death before their eyes.
1699. Ld. Tarbut, Lett., in Pepys’ Diary (1870), 688. That which is generally seen by them is the species of living creatures, and inanimate things, which are in motion.
† b. Similarly without of. Obs.
c. 1613. W. Browne, in Sir T. Overbury’s Wks. (1856), 12. Yet through thy wounded fame, as thorow these Glasses which multiply the species, We see thy vertues more.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, I. viii. 27. For he saw at a convenient distance forty windmils to be the very same, that the species represented them.
a. 1700. Ken, Hymnotheo, Poet. Wks. 1721, III. 355. As the two Eyes, two Species entertain.
† c. The image of something as cast upon, or reflected from, a surface; a reflection. Obs.
1638. Wilkins, New World, v. (1707), 41. The Light which appears in the Moon at the Eclipses, is nothing else but the second Species of the Sun’s Rays.
1669. Phil. Trans., IV. 1104. The way of casting the Species of the Sun through a good Telescope of a competent length, on an extended paper.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, VIII. 36. The glitt’ring species here and there divide, And cast their dubious beams from side to side.
1737. Gentl. Mag., VII. 121/2. I cast the Species of the Sun on a Sheet of Paper … thro’ a two-foot Telescope.
c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Arts, I. 200. The Species of an object is the image or representation thereof made by the rays of light in the Focus, or place where they unite.
† 4. A thing seen; a spectacle; esp. an unreal or imaginary object of sight; a phantom or illusion. Obs.
1639. S. Du Verger, trans. Camus’ Admir. Events, 34. We will cause her obsequies to be prepared, and a fantasme, or species to be put into the grave.
1652. J. Wright, trans. Camus’ Nat. Paradox, VI. 134. Shee had no sooner opened her Eyes, but the first species that formed it self to her sight, was an horrible Serpent of an immense growth.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 82. It helps against vaine species.
† 5. Metaph. A supposed emission or emanation from outward things, forming the direct object of cognition for the various senses or for the understanding. Obs.
The species affecting the senses were classed as sensible (divided into audible, visible, etc.) and distinguished from the intelligible. See also INTENTIONAL a. 3.
a. With qualifying adjs.
1614. Bp. Hall, No Peace with Rome, § 8 (1627), 665. In the same state as the faculty of seeing when a sensible species is absent.
1651. Hobbes, Govt. & Soc., xiii. § 7. 195. We may more truly say … that the sensible, and intelligible species of outward things,… are by the ayre transported to the soule.
1661. Boyle, Spring of Air (1682), 108. Because no visual species’s could proceed either from it, or through it, unto the eye.
1700. Astry, trans. Saavedra-Faxardo, II. 54. The Councils are as ’twere … the Optick Nerves, by which visible Species are transmitted to the Prince.
1707. J. Frazer, Disc. Second Sight, 17. Visible Ideas, or Species, are emitted from every visible Object to the Organ of the Eye.
b. In general use.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. i. II. vii. Memory layes vp all the Species which the Senses haue brought in, and records them.
1668. Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., Man. IV. viii. 345. That the Species of odours may with the Air be carried to the … Organs of Smelling.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 269. The very Air conveys the Species of diseased People, more especially if there be fit and prepared matter for Diseases.
1756. Gibbon, Autobiog. & Corr. (1869), 182. If you understand by ideas these chimerical species, the mere fictions of metaphysicians.
c. A mental impression; an idea.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, xxxviii. § 3. 329. If there be aboundance of specieses of any one kind of obiect then strong in the imagination.
1650. Earl Monm., trans. Senault’s Man bec. Guilty, 244. Imagine … that his soul exercising those species which she by the senses had received, considered the works of God.
1711. Shaftesb., Charact. (1737), III. 33. There are certain moral Species or Appearances so striking,… that … they bear down all contrary Opinion.
† 6. In Platonic philosophy, = IDEA sb. 1. Obs.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 261. I suppose, said Socrates, that God and the very Species, Essence or Idea of Life, will be granted by all to be Incorruptible.
1704. Norris, Ideal World, II. vi. 315. Plato … supposed besides these corporal things another kind of beings separate from matter and motion, which he called species or ideas. Ibid. That so the soul did not understand those corporal things, but the separate species of those corporal things.
1792. Monboddo, Language, ix. 110. These perfect ideas of Plato are no other than the specieses of things which were held by Aristotle to exist in the mind of the deity.
II. 7. Logic. The second of the five Predicables (q.v.), connoting the common attributes or essential qualities of a class of persons or things as distinguished from the genus on the one hand and the individual on the other.
1551. T. Wilson, Logike, B vj. Species is a common word that is spoken of many whiche differ only in number, as manne is spoken of Socrates,… and of euery proper name belonging to a man. As Socrates is a man.
1567. Jewel, Def. Apol., III. v. 343. What adoo was made in daily disputations … aboute Genus and Species, and the reste of the Vniuersals.
1657. J. Smith, Myst. Rhet., A viij b. Species, is a more special title attributed to divers particulars under it: as, Man to William, Thomas, John.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. i. § 3. 26. That common nature which is communicable to several Individuals, is called Species, Sort or special kind.
1725. Watts, Logic (1726), 36. A special Idea is call’d by the Schools, a Species; it is one common Nature that agrees to several singular or individual Beings. Ibid., 235. All those supposed unknown Parts, Properties or Species are clearly and distinctly perceived to be … contain’d in the known Parts, Properties or general Ideas.
1827. Whately, Logic, 138. Whatever Term can be affirmed of several things, must express … their whole essence, which is called a Species.
1857–60. [see DIFFERENCE sb. 4 c].
† b. The essential quality or specific properties of a thing. Obs.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 429. The instruments whereby the Species or kinde of any thing is vnited and knit vnto the matter.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., II. vi. I am come to have you play the Alchymist with me, and change the species of my land, into that mettall you talke of. Ibid. (1610), Alch., II. iii. We … can produce the species of each mettall More perfect thence, then nature doth in earth.
1651. Hobbes, Govt. & Soc., vii. § 1. 109. We have already spoken of a City by institution in its Genus; we now say somewhat of its species.
8. A class composed of individuals having some common qualities or characteristics, freq. as a subdivision of a larger class or genus.
1630. Prynne, Anti-Armin., 180. This kinde of argument from euery indiuiduall to the species will not hold.
1653. ? Hales, Brevis Disq., in Phenix (1708), II. 324. Are you not yet sure whether … if you reject all the Species, the whole Genus be taken away?
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., III. vi. § 8. The individuals that are ranked into one sort, called by one common name, and so received as being of one species.
1762. Kames, Elem. Crit. (1833), 486. A number of individuals considered with respect to qualities that distinguish them from others, is termed a species.
1822. I. Taylor, Elem. Educ., 39. The smaller parcels into which we afterwards divide the whole, are called species.
1843. Mill, Logic, I. vii. § 3. In this popular sense any two classes one of which includes the whole of the other and more may be called a genus and a species.
1870. Jevons, Elem. Logic, xii. 98. A species is any class which is regarded as forming part of the next larger class.
† b. Algebra. (See quot. 1704.) Obs.
‘The term was … used by Vieta in its logical sense, as opposed to individual, in designating the algebraical notation which he first distinctly proposed’ (Penny Cycl., XXII. 322).
1674. Jeake, Arith. (1696), 334. Species are Quantities or Magnitudes, denoted by Letters, signifying Numbers, Lines, Lineats, Figures Geometrical, &c.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2319/4. Together with Arithmetick in Species or Algebra, &c.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Species in Algebra, are those Letters, Notes, Marks, or Symbols, which represent the Quantities in any Equation or Demonstration.
c. Without article, esp. in phr. in species.
1785. Reid, Intell. Powers, 28. To differ in species is one thing, to differ in degree another.
1841. Lane, Arab. Nts., I. 30. It is believed … that the difference between them and the Jinn and Sheyṭáns is a difference of species.
9. A distinct class, sort, or kind, of something specifically mentioned or indicated. Freq. const. of.
The separate groups of quotations illustrate the chief varieties of context.
(a). 1561. T. Hoby, trans. Castiglione’s Courtyer, III. (1900), 223. Both the one and the other is conteined under the Species of Homo.
1660. R. Coke, Justice Vind., 26. If the Scriptures be true,… that since Adam … the species of Mankind was continued by generation.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 830. Sheep, Oxen, Horses fall; and heap’d on high, The diff’ring Species in Confusion lye.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Ess., Wks. 1765, II. 155. Man is not proud as a species, but as an individual.
1799. Washington, Lett., Writ. 1893, XIV. 196. To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species.
(b) 1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., II. iii. Every your most noted species of persons, is your marchant, your scholer, your souldier.
1662. J. Davies, trans. Olearius’ Voy. Ambass., 170. They were certain Indian Lords…. The same Author distinguishes them into four species.
a. 1687. Petty, Pol. Arith. (1690), 95. Might not the several Species of the Kings Subjects, be equally mixt in their Habitations?
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 75, ¶ 2. That species of men whom the ladies generally mention with terror.
1780. Bentham, Princ. Legisl., xviii. § 44, note. Aristotle … divides mankind into two distinct species: that of freemen and that of slaves.
1867. Kingsley, Water Life, vi. (1879), 71. Dante, with his various bolge, tenanted each by its various species of sinners.
(c) 1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 43. Now in his parts, kindes, or Species, (as you list to terme them) it is to be noted, that some Poesies haue coupled together two or three kindes.
1759. Goldsm., Wks. (1837), III. 215. Disapproving in one species of composition, what we approve in another!
1780. Mirror, No. 79. No species of poetry has given occasion to more observation and criticism than what is called pastoral.
1801. Busby, Dict. Mus., Species, a subdivision of one of the genera of the ancient music. The genera of the Greeks were three…. The Species were called Chroia, or colours of the genera.
1826. Macaulay, Misc. Writ. (1860), I. 303. No species of fiction is so delightful to us as the old English drama.
1845. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 1. Such history is a distinct species of composition.
(d) a. 1625. Sir H. Finch, Law (1636), 252. Wood is the generall of all trees growing, and therefore shall be put in demand before Alders and Willowes which are but species of it.
1656. [? J. Sergeant], trans. T. White’s Peripat. Inst., 355. By the meeting of different parts, as many kinds and species of Earths,… we see [etc.].
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., II. l. 229. I told them what the current Price was in Town for every Species of my Goods.
1794. Hutton, Philos. Light, etc. 65. That it is the invisible species of light which is most absorbed by the … glass.
(e) 1635. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Banish’d Virg., 136. There was not any species of simplicity that I counterfeited not affectately.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, ii. § 8. 14. There remaineth no more to be said of this subiect, but to enumerate the seuerall specieses of Quantity.
1769. E. Bancroft, Guiana, 368. In this situation they are subjected to many complicated species of misery.
1792. J. Barlow, Constit. of 1791, 9. That species of government which offers a premium for wickedness.
1825. Macaulay, Ess., Milton (1851), I. 26. He fought for the species of freedom which is the most valuable.
1834. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Seine, 83. That imaginative species of memory which converts the past into the present.
b. A species of, a kind of (cf. KIND sb. 14); also with the. † in early use in more definite sense.
1620. T. Granger, Div. Logike, xiii. 315. When in the handling of a controuerted question, diuers opinions are recited, it is a part, or species of a narration.
1644. Bulwer, Chirol., 108. For suretiship is a species of bargaining.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 87, ¶ 9. Their gratitude is a species of revenge.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xii. A species of native banditti who were always on the watch for prey.
1839. Fr. A. Kemble, Resid. in Georgia (1863), 12. Under the species of social proscription in which the blacks in your Northern cities exist.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 345. Clipping is a species of pruning that was formerly much more general.
c. Applied to individuals as unique or as typical of a class.
1644. Cleveland, Char. Lond. Diurnall, 7. As the Angels, each of them makes a severall Species; so every one of his Souldiers is a distinct Church.
1656. Cowley, Pindar. Odes, Praise of Pindar, i. Pindar is imitable by none; The Phœnix Pindar is a vast Species alone.
1719. Young, Busiris, V. i. I can’t complain in common with mankind—But am a wretched species all alone.
1768. Johnson, Pref. to Shaks., Wks. IX. 243. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.
d. With possessive pronouns, usually with reference to man or animals.
1706. E. Ward, Wooden World Diss. (1708), 42. He loves dearly to propagate his Species, even in the very Lands that know him not.
1794. Godwin, Caleb Williams, 48. You will live deserted in the midst of your species.
1839. Ruskin, Poetry Arch., vi. § 87. A man who could remain a radical in a wood country is a disgrace to his species.
e. The species, the human race.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 10, ¶ 6. Their Amusements seem contrived for them rather as they are Women…; and are more adapted to the Sex, than to the Species.
1728. Fielding, Love in Sev. Masques, Ded., Wks. 1882, VIII. 3. Those morose schoolmen, who would confine knowledge to the male part of the species.
1797. Godwin, Enquirer, I. i. 1. If individuals were happy, the species would be happy.
1814. Chalmers, Evidences, vi. 182. Every great step in the history of the species.
1859. Mill, Liberty, i. 7. In the stage of progress into which the more civilized portions of the Species have now entered.
10. Zool. and Bot. A group or class of animals or plants (usually constituting a subdivision of a genus) having certain common and permanent characteristics which clearly distinguish it from other groups.
The exact definition of a species, and the criteria by which species are to be distinguished (esp. in relation to genera or varieties), have been the subject of much discussion.
1608. Topsell, Serpents, 126. Some haue taken the word Crocodilus for the Genus, and the seuerall Species, they distinguish into the Crocodile of the Earth and the water.
1676. Ray, Corr. (1848), 122. In the ‘History of the Fero Islands’ I find no more species of birds than what I have already inserted in the Ornithology.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, VI. (1723), 272. There were then the very same kinds of Animals and Vegetables, and the same subordinate Species under each kind that now there is.
1730. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Leontopetalon, We have but one Species of this Plant in the English Gardens.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl. s.v. Specific, The torpedo maculosa, and non maculosa, seem to express two species different only in the spots.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 462. Of which genus Phyllachne … is justly there reckoned a species.
1825. Waterton, Wand. S. Amer., I. i. 94. The Humming-birds are chiefly to be found near the flowers at which each of the species of the genus is wont to feed.
1862. Johns, Brit. Birds, 415. The American Bittern … seems to differ in no material respect from the European species.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 208. Exactly the same kind, or species of shell-fish … is found to-day living in the Mediterranean.
† 11. a. pl. The separate materials or ingredients used in compounding a perfume, drug, or similar preparation. Obs.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 375. The Species that goe to the composition of sweet Perfumes. Ibid., II. 289. It is one of the species or ingredients entring into the preseruatiue compositions called Antidotes.
1693. trans. Blancard’s Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Species of Treacle are those Ingredients of which Treacle is compounded: By the same Name are called the Species of ordinary Decoctions.
† b. pl. Spices. Obs.–1
1652. Crashaw, Carmen Deo Nostro, Wks. (1904), 198. Mountains of myrrh, & Beds of species.
† c. A composition used in embalming. Obs.
1767. Gooch, Treat. Wounds, I. 457. Filled with a species, compounded of fragrant herbs, aromatic drugs, and gums reduced to powder.
† 12. a. A particular kind or sort of coin or money. Obs.
1617. Moryson, Itin., I. 275. With covenant to deliver him by his Factor the same [coins], both in the Species or Kind, and in the number.
1699. Bentley, Phal., 440. Dionysius perhaps did not only recoin the money of Syracuse; but alter the Species too and the Names of it.
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 4029/1. The different Rates at which the same Species of Foreign Coins do pass.
1756. Mrs. F. Brooke, Old Maid, No. 20. 171. He gave me a note specifying the sum, and the several species of money of which it consisted.
† b. Coinage, coin, money, bullion. Obs.
In this sense it is difficult to distinguish between sing. and pl., and in some cases the pl. of SPECIE may be intended.
a. 1618. Raleigh, Prerog. Parl., 58. If all be content to pay upon moderation and change of the Species.
1672. Petty, Pol. Anat. (1691), 70. What hath been said of the Silver-species, may be said of the Gold-species.
1701. Lond. Gaz., No. 3740/3. The melting down of the Species is prohibited.
1748. Anson’s Voy. (ed. 4), 248. The species on board her was inconsiderable, being principally small silver money.
1788. Priestley, Lect. Hist., III. xvi. 138. Their nominal species … being about three times higher than ours.
1804. Captive of Valence, II. 100. By prohibiting species to be carried out of his kingdom in such small quantities, he will prevent the entry of a sum much more considerable.
† c. Metal (gold or silver) used for coinage. Obs.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 56. The paper securities … held out as a currency … in lieu of the two great recognized species that represent the lasting conventional credit of mankind.
† 13. pl. a. Naut. Sorts of provisions. Obs.
[1699. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), IV. 494. The victualling the Streights fleet without due proofe for the prime costs of the several species of provision.]
1716. Lond. Gaz., No. 5464/3. The Goodness of the several Species, and Conditions expected from each Contractor.
1751. Navy Board Orders, 4 April (MS.), The Kingfisher … to be Victualled to three months of all Species except Beer.
1806. Capt. Mundy, in Naval Chron., XXXIX. 13. Stored and victualled for five months, of all species.
† b. Sorts of produce. Obs.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1818), II. 53. So that if the tenant is not provided with all the species he is to pay, then that which is wanting may be converted into money.
14. attrib. and Comb., as species-cycle, -maker, -monger, -preservation.
1849. Darwin, in F. Darwin Life & Lett. (1887), I. 366. As long as species-mongers have their vanity tickled by seeing their own names appended to a species.
1851. S. P. Woodward, Mollusca, I. 61. Fancying that the genus-maker, and not the species-maker, should enjoy this privilege.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XVI. 843/2. The complete series of forms needed to represent the species being the species-cycle.
1894. H. Drummond, Ascent Man, 24. Obeying the law of species-preservation, to feed its young.
