A speck is a tiny piece or spot of something, so small you might barely notice it. You might see a speck of dust floating in a beam of sunlight, or a speck of paint on your shirt after an art project. When someone has a speck of dirt on their face, it's just a little dot, not a big smudge.

The word emphasizes how tiny something is. A speck of sand is much smaller than a handful. A speck on the horizon might be a distant airplane or ship, appearing as just a dot from far away. Sometimes people use speck to show how insignificant something is: “That mistake is just a speck compared to all the things you did right.”

You might also hear someone say they don't see “a speck of evidence” for something, meaning there's not even the smallest bit of proof. The word often appears when we're talking about finding something small in something large, like searching for a speck of gold in river sand, or noticing a dark speck moving across a bright white wall.