the.com/specialist
Someone who knows more and more about less and less, on purpose.
means A person who has deliberately narrowed their focus to master one field, skill, or subject in depth.
from From 'special,' tracing back to Latin 'specialis' (individual, particular), itself rooted in 'species' (a particular kind or appearance). The '-ist' suffix, borrowed through French and Latin from Greek '-istes,' marks a person who does or practices something. So a specialist is, by etymological design, someone devoted to one 'kind' rather than the whole — the word has been quietly narrowing its own focus for centuries, right along with the people it describes.
- origin
- rose with industrial division of labor, 19th century
- opposite number
- generalist, who knows less about more
- referral chain
- doctors specialize so they can refer you onward
- joke definition
- eventually knows everything about nothing