Meaning of SPECULATE
| Pronunciation: | | 'spekyu`leyt
|
 WordNet Dictionary |
| |
| | Definition: | |
- [v] talk over conjecturally, or review in an idle or casual way and with an element of doubt or without sufficient reason to reach a conclusion; "We were speculating whether the President had to resign after the scandal"
- [v] reflect deeply on a subject; "I mulled over the events of the afternoon"; "philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years"; "The scientist must stop to observe and start to excogitate"
- [v] to believe especially on uncertain or tentative grounds; "Scientists supposed that large dinosaurs lived in swamps."
- [v] invest at a risk; "I bought this house not because I want to live in it but to sell it later at a good price, so I am speculating"
|
| |
| | Websites: | | |
| |
| | Synonyms: | | chew over, conjecture, contemplate, excogotate, hypothecate, hypothesise, hypothesize, job, meditate, mull, mull over, muse, ponder, reflect, ruminate, suppose, theorise, theorize, think over |
| |
| | See Also: | | anticipate, bethink, brood, bull, cerebrate, cogitate, commit, consider, construct, develop, dwell, expect, explicate, formulate, guess, hazard, introspect, invest, place, premeditate, put, puzzle, question, reason, reconstruct, retrace, say, study, suppose, theologise, theologize, think, venture, wonder, worry | |
| Webster's 1913 Dictionary |
| |
| | Definition: | |
\Spec"u*late\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Speculated}; p.
pr. & vb. n. {Speculating}.] [L. speculatus, p. p. of
speculari to spy out, observe, fr. specula a lookout, fr.
specere to look. See {Spy}.]
1. 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. --Hawthorne.
2. (Philos.) To view subjects from certain premises given or
assumed, and infer conclusions respecting them a priori.
3. (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.
\Spec"u*late\, v. t.
To consider attentively; as, to speculate the nature of a
thing. [R.] --Sir W. Hamilton.
|
| |
|
|