species [LME] The connection may not be immediately obvious, but species is based on Latin specere ‘to look’. The Latin root is reflected in some of the early uses of the word, such as ‘the outward look or appearance of something’, or ‘an image or reflection’. Over time this idea of the visible form of something developed into the more general notion of a thing’s ‘type’ or ‘kind’. See also female. Other English words based on Latin specere or the related verb spectare include special [ME]; spectator [L16th]; spectre [E17th] (literally ‘an appearance’); specimen [E17th]; and spy [ME]. Another is spectacle (ME in the sense ‘a show’)—a spectacle, originally used in the singular, was a term for a device to assist eyesight as far back as the 15th century.