basic vs special

basic

adj
  • Unremarkable or uninteresting; boring; uncool. 

  • Elementary, simple, fundamental, merely functional. 

  • Of or pertaining to a base; having a pH greater than 7. 

  • Necessary, essential for life or some process. 

noun
  • An elementary building block, e.g. a fundamental piece of knowledge. 

  • A necessary commodity, a staple requirement. 

  • Basic training. 

special

adj
  • Distinguished by a unique or unusual quality. 

  • Chief in excellence. 

  • Of particular personal interest or value; dear; beloved. 

  • Of or related to disabilities, especially learning or intellectual disabilities. 

  • Constituting or relating to a species. 

  • Of or related to unconventional warfare. 

verb
  • To supervise a patient one-on-one. 

noun
  • Anything that is not according to normal practice, plan, or schedule, as an unscheduled run of transportation that is normally scheduled. 

  • A person appointed specifically to examine a single event or issue. 

  • Any unlicensed medicine produced or obtained for a specific individual patient. 

  • A dispatch sent back by a special correspondent. 

  • One of a rotation of meals systematically offered for a lower price at a restaurant. 

  • A light that illuminates a specific person or thing on the stage. 

  • A reduction in consumer cost (usually for a limited time) for items or services rendered. 

  • A special constable. 

  • A correspondent; a journalist sent to the scene of an event to report back. 

  • Unusual or exceptional episode of a series. 

How often have the words basic and special occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )