In logic, especially as applied in mathematics, concept is a special case or specialization of concept precisely if every instance of is also an instance of but not vice versa, or equivalently, if is a generalization of . A limiting case is a type of special case which is arrived at by taking some aspect of the concept to the extreme of what is permitted in the general case. A degenerate case is a special case which is in some way qualitatively different from almost all of the cases allowed.