specified

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of specify.

   The contract specified a delivery date of June first.

   The materials specified in the blueprint were never delivered to the site.

   Note

   One regular spelling does two jobs. The simple past stands alone as the finite verb (the client specified oak). The participle follows have in the perfect and be in the passive. Because specify is nearly always transitive, the participle often comes after a noun as a shortened passive: the terms specified in the agreement. An older intransitive use, specifying of something, is now obsolete.

2. 2
   adjective

   Clearly and thoroughly explained or set out in detail.

   The specified procedure left no room for misunderstanding among the crew.

   Reviewers praised the well-specified requirements in the project proposal.

   Similardetailed, explicit, defined, precise, prescribed

   Oppositevague, undefined, unclear, ambiguous

   Note

   Here the participle stops reporting an act and starts describing a quality. The adjective is gradable, so it takes more specified and most specified, while the past-tense verb form does not. One plan can be more specified than another, but a date was simply specified or it was not. Checking whether more or very fits is the quickest way to tell the two apart.

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