01 n. sing. & pl. Visible or sensible presentation; appearance; a sensible percept received by the imagination; an image.
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1.
Visible or sensible presentation; appearance; a sensible percept received by the imagination; an image.[R.]“Wit, . . . the faculty of imagination in the writer, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent.” — Dryden.
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2.
A group of individuals agreeing in common attributes, and designated by a common name; a conception subordinated to another conception, called a genus, or generic conception, from which it differs in containing or comprehending more attributes, and extending to fewer individuals. Thus, man is a species, under animal as a genus; and man, in its turn, may be regarded as a genus with respect to European, American, or the like, as species.(Logic) See: man, animal, European, American
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3.
In science, a more or less permanent group of existing things or beings, associated according to attributes, or properties determined by scientific observation.
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4.
A sort; a kind; a variety; as, a species of low cunning; a species of generosity; a species of cloth.
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5.
Coin, or coined silver, gold, or other metal, used as a circulating medium; specie.[Obs.]“There was, in the splendor of the Roman empire, a less quantity of current species in Europe than there is now.” — Arbuthnot.
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6.
A public spectacle or exhibition.[Obs.]
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7.
A component part of a compound medicine; a simple.(Pharmacy)
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8.
The form or shape given to materials; fashion or shape; form; figure.(Civil Law)
Phrases & compounds
Incipient species —
a subspecies, or variety, which is in process of becoming permanent, and thus changing to a true species, usually by isolation in localities from which other varieties are excluded.