SPECULATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Speculate

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/spˈɛkjəlˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Speculate v. t. To consider attentively; as, to speculate the nature of a thing. (R.)

Speculate v. i. (past & past part. speculated; pres. part. speculating)

To consider by turning a subject in the mind, and viewing it in its different aspects and relations; to meditate; to contemplate; to theorize; as, to speculate on questions in religion; to speculate on political events. "It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most pefect quietude to the external regulations of society."

(Philos.) To view subjects from certain premises given or assumed, and infer conclusions respecting them a priori.

(Com.) To purchase with the expectation of a contingent advance in value, and a consequent sale at a profit; often, in a somewhat depreciative sense, of unsound or hazardous transactions; as, to speculate in coffee, in sugar, or in bank stock.

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Etymology of 'Speculate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Speculate" Quotes from Famous Books

... together on the road, as we finally drive down the hill, their figures silhouetted against the sky. They have been on the whole pleased and awakened by their adventure; they will discuss and compare their emotions, finger their silver, wonder and speculate, and go their separate ways, convinced anew that the ways of the world and its worldlings ...

— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... appetize my hunger." As she betrayed a familiar knowledge of the tariff of an attractive confectioner, she was asked whether she and her sisters had been frequenting those little tables on their way from school. "I sometimes go in there, mother," she confessed; "but I generally speculate outside." ...

— The Children • Alice Meynell

... the scene and by the indescribable wildness of the Imam's chant. Paul, too, was silent, and, though far less able to feel such emotions than his elder brother, the sight of such unanimous and heart-felt devotion called up strange trains of thought in his mind, and forced him to speculate upon the qualities and the character which still survived in these hereditary enemies of his nation. It was not possible, he said to himself, that such men could ever be really conquered. They might be driven from ...

— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... he was dimly aware of a feeling toward the beautiful creature who walked at his side day after day, sharing without complaint hardship and fatigue that sorely taxed his own endurance, that was something more than mere regard, and he had begun to speculate vaguely on a possible future in which she became ...

— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... the loser for it, because "it interrupted that studious leisure for which nature seemed to have designed him, and in which alone he could have hoped to accomplish those literary projects which had flattered the ambition of his youthful genius." Now it is, of course, idle to speculate on the things that might have been. Kant was never forty miles from Konigsberg, and had Smith remained in Glasgow all his days there is no reason to doubt he could have produced works of lasting ...

— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

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