specials

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of special.

   The grocery store rotates its specials every Wednesday morning.

   Television networks air a string of holiday specials each December.

   Note

   One spelling serves every noun use of special at once. Shoppers meet specials as price cuts, diners as dishes offered only for a time, and viewers as one-off episodes. In British colloquial speech the specials are special constables, and in medicine they are unlicensed medicines prepared for one patient. The same spelling is also the nursing verb, so context decides which one you are reading.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of special.

   The charge nurse specials the most unstable patient in the unit overnight.

   On the night shift, a nurse specials any patient who is at high risk of falling.

   Note

   A hospital verb with a single job: one nurse watches one patient without a break. It is transitive, and its object is the patient. A nurse specials a patient, and a ward can be said to special a case. Outside clinical talk, readers will usually take the same spelling as the plural noun, so this form sounds natural mainly on a ward.

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