SPECULATIVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Speculative

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/spˈɛkjələtɪv/ Listen

adjective

Speculative adj.

Given to speculation; contemplative. "The mind of man being by nature speculative."

Involving, or formed by, speculation; ideal; theoretical; not established by demonstration.

Of or pertaining to vision; also, prying; inquisitive; curious. (R.)

Of or pertaining to speculation in land, goods, shares, etc.; as, a speculative dealer or enterprise. "The speculative merchant exercises no one regular, established, or well-known branch of business."

(Finance) More risky than typical investments; not investment grade.

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Etymology of 'Speculative'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Speculative" Quotes from Famous Books

... form other than these two. Expression and concept exhaust it completely. The whole speculative life of man is spent in passing from one to the other ...

— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... to its symbolism, to its mystic relation with the vessel and its uses. But I have to do here with the forms taken by motives, with their morphology rather than with their signification, as the latter must, with reference to archaeologic material, remain greatly speculative. ...

— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... agreement as to the fact of evolution. People generally thought the idea absurd, as well as irreligious. All previous efforts on the part of advanced thinkers to persuade mankind of the truth of evolution had been nearly without effect. Among the early philosophers the whole idea was purely speculative. They made no attempt to prove it, and the conception was without influence upon the thinking of the ordinary man. This remains true until the time of Lamarck. This French genius succeeded in persuading not a few people of the validity ...

— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... question for the first time. His views seemed to float in the air, without a single previous effort to support them. The whole question of the formation of living things was considered by biologists, until 1859, as pertaining to the province of religion and transcendentalism; even in speculative philosophy, in which the question had been approached from various sides, no one had ventured to give it serious treatment. This was due to the dualistic system of Immanuel Kant, who taught a natural system of evolution as far as the inorganic world was concerned; but, on the whole, ...

— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... eloquence; he has passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has passages of exquisitely touched observation of nature. Yet he is not a great writer.... Carlyle formulates perfectly the defects of his friend's poetic and literary productions when he says: 'For me it is too ethereal, speculative, theoretic; I will have all things condense themselves, take shape and body, if they are to have my ...

— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

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