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Specific gravity   /spəsˈɪfɪk grˈævəti/   Listen
noun
Gravity  n.  (pl. gravities)  
1.
The state of having weight; beaviness; as, the gravity of lead.
2.
Sobriety of character or demeanor. "Men of gravity and learning."
3.
Importance, significance, dignity, etc; hence, seriousness; enormity; as, the gravity of an offense. "They derive an importance from... the gravity of the place where they were uttered."
4.
(Physics) The tendency of a mass of matter toward a center of attraction; esp., the tendency of a body toward the center of the earth; terrestrial gravitation.
5.
(Mus.) Lowness of tone; opposed to acuteness.
Center of gravity See under Center.
Gravity battery, See Battery, n., 4.
Specific gravity, the ratio of the weight of a body to the weight of an equal volume of some other body taken as the standard or unit. This standard is usually water for solids and liquids, and air for gases. Thus, 19, the specific gravity of gold, expresses the fact that, bulk for bulk, gold is nineteen times as heavy as water.


adjective
specific  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to a species; characterizing or constituting a species; possessing the peculiar property or properties of a thing which constitute its species, and distinguish it from other things; as, the specific form of an animal or a plant; the specific qualities of a drug; the specific distinction between virtue and vice. "Specific difference is that primary attribute which distinguishes each species from one another."
2.
Specifying; definite, or making definite; limited; precise; discriminating; as, a specific statement.
3.
(Med.) Exerting a peculiar influence over any part of the body; preventing or curing disease by a peculiar adaptation, and not on general principles; as, quinine is a specific medicine in cases of malaria. "In fact, all medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science."
Specific character (Nat. Hist.), a characteristic or characteristics distinguishing one species from every other species of the same genus.
Specific disease (Med.)
(a)
A disease which produces a determinate definite effect upon the blood and tissues or upon some special tissue.
(b)
A disease which is itself uniformly produced by a definite and peculiar poison or organism.
Specific duty. (Com.) See under Duty.
Specific gravity. (Physics) See under Gravity.
Specific heat (Physics), the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a body one degree, taking as the unit of measure the quantity required to raise the same weight of water from zero to one degree; thus, the specific heat of mercury is 0.033, that of water being 1.000.
Specific inductive capacity (Physics), the effect of a dielectric body in producing static electric induction as compared with that of some other body or bodies referred to as a standard.
Specific legacy (Law), a bequest of a particular thing, as of a particular animal or piece of furniture, specified and distinguished from all others.
Specific name (Nat. Hist.), the name which, appended to the name of the genus, constitutes the distinctive name of the species; originally applied by Linnaeus to the essential character of the species, or the essential difference. The present specific name he at first called the trivial name.
Specific performance (Law), the peformance of a contract or agreement as decreed by a court of equity.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Specific gravity" Quotes from Famous Books



... various liquids and transparent solids (thirteen in number, including spring, rain, and salt water; Spanish and Rhenish wine; vinegar; spirits of wine; oils and glass). The angle of incidence is 30 in each case; also the specific gravity of each substance is given. Then he discusses the reason why refraction takes place. Promises to write on the Rainbow; but will merely say at present that it is to be explained by the reflection on the concave superficies and the refraction at ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... much as I am," said Stacy, "that this good fortune is rather crowding to us three alone. For myself, I know," he continued, with a backward glance towards a blanketed, covered pile in the corner of the cabin, "that I feel rather oppressed by—by its specific gravity, I calculate—and sort of crampy and twitchy in the legs, as if I ought to 'lite' out and do something, and yet it holds me here. All the same, I doubt if anybody will come up—except from curiosity. Our luck has made ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... with the hand, and the process of rotation renewed until the whole of the sand is taken away, and the gold alone remains. It is found in very minute scales, and, unless I had been assured to the contrary, I should have taken it to be mica, for, knowing the gold to be of greater specific gravity than the sand, I imagined that a stream of water would remove the latter and leave the former; but here the practice is to remove the whole of the sand by the hand. This process was, no doubt, a profitable ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... full, and, piling up his raiment on the floor, jumped in. Displacing a large quantity of water, equal to his own bulk, he thereupon solved the question of specific gravity, and, forgetting his bill, forgetting his clothes, he sailed up Sixteenth street and all over Syracuse, clothed in shimmering sunlight and a plain gold ring, shouting "Eureka!" He ran head-first into a Syracuse ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... should be for the worse. We are floating on a sea of beneficence, in which it is impossible for us to sink. But though one could not easily drown in the Dead Sea, one might starve. And when goodness is of too great specific gravity it is impossible to get on in it or out of it. This is disconcerting to one of an active disposition. It is comforting to be told that everything is completely good, till you reflect that that is only another way of saying that nothing can be made any better, and that there ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers


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