Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also speck) a business, a commercial enterprise.

1794		J. Adams Works I 469: Many merchants have already made a noble spec. of the embargo by raising their prices [DA].
1814		J. Wetherell Adventures of John Wetherell (1954) 14 Jan. 206: He a made poor speck of his liver and lights.
1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 16: The Plum-Pudding Hero [...] thinks it a good spec to go down the road with his ‘All hot,’ chaffing its good qualities .
1826		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 8: New city specs, new west-end rigs.
1833		S. Smith Major Downing (1834) 102: We sold a few of ’em right out, and made a pretty good spec in ’em.
1838		‘Alfred Crowquill’ Seymour’s Humourous Sketches (1866) 167: I’ve made a xlent spec o’ the woy’ge and bagg’d some tin too i can tell you.
1838		T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 8: I’ve been a considerable of a traveller in my day; arovin’ about [...] atradin’ wherever I seed a good chance of making a speck.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Feb. 3/4: It is not a bad ‘speck’ to give seamen notes on the agents for their pay.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 66: You’ll make a grand spec out of that, I expect!
1849		Paul Pry 15 Jan. n.p.: M. H—l, not to appear so conspicuously in betting at pigeon shooting, as he will find that, like horse-racing, a losing ‘spec’.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 384: He shall have no share in this spec [...] His brain is not strong enough to bear much of this sort of thing.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 190/2: It was rather a venturesome ’spec.
1865		R.S. Surtees Facey Romford’s Hounds 239: The Half-Guinea Hat Company, one of the best specs going.
1873		W.H. Thomes Slaver’s Adventures 174: Well, there’s a good spec gone to the devil, and I ain’t to blame for it.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 June 3/2: ’Tis a gift, sir, a perfect gift, were it not that of late I have squandered a thousand or two, my own brother, sir, had I one, should not stand in the spec.
1887		in Overland Monthly (CA) July 52: His having made a ‘right smart spec’ by retailing crab-apple blossoms.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) II 162: In March 1877, I went in for a ‘spec,’ and bought Orleans House.
1898–9		H. Lawson ‘The Iron-Bark Chip’ in Roderick (1972) 329: Dave and party [...] wanted to get their cheque and be gone to another ‘spec’ they had in view.
1905		‘The Overlander’ in ‘Banjo’ Paterson Old Bush Songs 118: There’s a trade you all know well— / It’s bringing cattle over— [...] I made up my mind to try the spec.
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 12 Oct. 12/2: ‘I’ve a grand spec on, and I want money!’.

2. as sense 1 in other than commercial contexts.

1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry III i: No go, Tom, – I’m fly – it’s a bad spec; I am not going to expose my ignorance of fencing here – but as far as a bout of single-stick goes – why I have no objection.
1826		‘Nocturnal Sports’ in Universal Songster II 180/2: Though a bad game, it turned to a better spec than ve hexpected.
1841		W. Leman Rede Sixteen String Jack II iv: jer.: I’ve a spec to-night: Sixteen String-Jack and his pals are likely to be here; we must watch their proceedings, and then— bob: What, rob them of their plunder? jer.: No, inform against them.
1861		Hills & Plains I 88: ‘Well, I don't see how you are to find substitutes [...] unless you marry a missionary; and that is rather a poor spec’.
1881-2		T.B. Reed Fifth Form at St Dominic’s (1890) 348: [T]he natural impulse had been equally as strong to suspect Oliver, and — well, that had somehow turned out a bad ‘spec’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 10/1: This is how Black-tracker Jock chose a wife. It was in the early days, when all the blacks on the Burdekin were ‘Myalls,’ that this matrimonial spec. was ventured on.

3. a lottery.

1869

J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 381: Throughout lower London, and the shady portions of its suburbs, the window of almost every public-house and beer-shop was spotted with some notice of these ‘Specs.’ There were dozens of them. There were the ‘Deptford Spec,’ and the ‘Lambeth Spec,’ and the ‘Great Northern Spec,’ and the ‘Derby Spec;’ but they all meant one and the same thing – a lottery, conducted on principles more or less honest, the prize to be awarded according to the performances of certain racehorses.

4. a speculator.

1929		W. Winchell On Broadway 10 July [synd. col.] The playgoer who can afford $5.50 [...] for choice seats is the fellow who can afford the extra tariff demanded by the specs.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Hold ’Em, Yale!’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 146: A ticket spec [...] offering them a few bobs more than the duckets are worth.
1938		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 2 Dec. [synd. col.] Why should I pay a spec. $8.80 for a $3.30 ticket to a show nobody liked but me?
1951		Green & Laurie Show Biz from Vaude to Video 571: Spec – [...] occasionally, ticket speculator.