spécialitén.

1836 T. Wyse Educ. Reform i. 73 All mechanism in education, too rigorously and invariably pursued leads to stiffness, to that ‘spécialité’ which..is particularly to be avoided.

1839 W. A. Shee Jrnl. Sept. in My Contemporaries (1893) iii. 79 The jousts..are..the specialité of such a meeting.

1857 ‘G. Eliot’ Let. 1 Sept. (1954) II. 379 Every new or renovated journal should have a specialité—do something not yet done, fill up a gap.

1861 K. Stanley Let. 1 Feb. in B. Russell & P. Russell Amberley Papers (1937) I. iii. 114 Mr. Oliphant..is very anxious that Japan should not be thought his spécialité so he will not learn the language.

1893 E. Œ. Somerville & ‘M. Ross’ In Vine Country ix. 167 The spécialité of the town, ordered expressly for us by Monsieur A., the macaroons made at the convent according to an ancient recipe known to the nuns.

1956 R. Macaulay Towers of Trebizond xi. 119 We got several good trout, and two odd-shaped fishes which must have been a specialité of that lake, as we had never seen them before.

1976 ‘M. Innes’ Gay Phoenix iii. 42 These Paphians, like the restaurants, had their spécialités.

1996 J. Lanchester Debt to Pleasure (1997) 22 She would prepare her spécialité, Irish stew.