specific heat

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The ratio of the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of a substance by one unit of temperature to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a similar mass of a reference material, usually water, by the same amount.
• noun The amount of heat, measured in calories, required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance by one Celsius degree.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun physics the ratio of the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of a unit mass of substance by a unit degree to the amount of heat needed to raise that of the same mass of water by the same amount
• noun physics the amount of heat, in calories, needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance one degree centigrade