SPECIALIZATION

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SPECIALIZATION. A process of SEMANTIC CHANGE in which narrowing occurs in the meaning of a word. In Middle English, deer meant a four-legged beast (compare Dutch dier and German Tier), but the early restriction to one kind of animal (the family Cervidae) has long since eclipsed the earlier meaning. Such specialization is slow and need not be complete; fowl is now usually restricted to the farmyard hen, but it retains its old meaning of ‘bird’ in expressions like the fowls of the air and wild fowl (compare Chaucer's ‘Parlement of Fowles’ and German Vogel).

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