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Specere in Latin is an archaic verb meaning "to look at". It is the source of the more common verb with this meaning, spectare.

The verbal ending -tare is what is known as a "frequentative" ending, which conveys the idea of performing the action of the base verb frequently or repeatedly. Thus, for example, dicere is "to say"; dictare is "to say often; to assert repeatedly". In many cases a verb that is frequentative in form loses that nuance, becomes more or less synonymous with the base verb, and then edges it out. This is what happened with specere and spectare. Another example is canere and cantare, both meaning "to sing"; it is the frequentative form that survived and gave rise to the modern Romance verbs for singing, such as French chanter, Spanish cantar, Italian cantare.

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