Adjacent Words

speculation definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence [syn: guess, conjecture, supposition, surmise, surmisal, speculation, hypothesis]
2: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence); "speculations about the outcome of the election"; "he dismissed it as mere conjecture" [syn: speculation, conjecture]
3: an investment that is very risky but could yield great profits; "he knew the stock was a speculation when he bought it" [syn: speculation, venture]
4: continuous and profound contemplation or musing on a subject or series of subjects of a deep or abstruse nature; "the habit of meditation is the basis for all real knowledge" [syn: meditation, speculation]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 14th century an act or instance of speculating: as a. assumption of unusual business risk in hopes of obtaining commensurate gain b. a transaction involving such speculation

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 the act or an instance of speculating; a theory or conjecture (made no speculation as to her age; is given to speculation). 2 a a speculative investment or enterprise (bought it as a speculation). b the practice of business speculating. 3 a game in which trump cards are bought or sold. Etymology: ME f. OF speculation or LL speculatio (as SPECULATE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Speculation Spec`u*la"tion, n. [L. speculatio a spying out, observation: cf. F. sp['e]culation.] 1. The act of speculating. Specifically: (a) Examination by the eye; view. [Obs.] (b) Mental view of anything in its various aspects and relations; contemplation; intellectual examination. Thenceforth to speculations high or deep I turned my thoughts. --Milton. (c) (Philos.) The act or process of reasoning a priori from premises given or assumed. (d) (Com.) The act or practice of buying land, goods, shares, etc., in expectation of selling at a higher price, or of selling with the expectation of repurchasing at a lower price; a trading on anticipated fluctuations in price, as distinguished from trading in which the profit expected is the difference between the retail and wholesale prices, or the difference of price in different markets.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

see speculate

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Contemplation, intellectual examination, mental view. 2. Theory, scheme, hypothesis, supposition, conjecture, view, a priori reasoning, reflection.

Moby Thesaurus

abstraction, actuarial prediction, advisement, agiotage, analysis, apocalypse, arbitrage, betting, blind guess, bold conjecture, brainwork, brooding, buying in, calculated risk, cardsharping, casting lots, cerebration, chance, cogitation, conjecture, consideration, contemplation, counsel, deliberation, doctrinairism, doctrinality, doctrinarity, equity capital, evaluation, excogitation, explanation, flier, flutter, foreboding, forecast, forecasting, foreshowing, foresight, foretelling, fortune, gamble, gambling, gaming, guess, guesswork, hazard, hazarding, hunch, hypothesis, improbability, investment, liquidation, luck, lucubration, meditation, mere theory, musing, omen, opinion, perhaps, play, playing, plunge, pondering, postulation, prediction, prefiguration, prefigurement, prefiguring, presage, presaging, presentiment, preshowing, presignifying, prime investment, probability, profit taking, prognosis, prognostication, promise, prophecy, prophesying, prospectus, reflection, review, revolving, risk, risking, rough guess, round trade, rumination, scalping, shot, soothsay, sortition, sporting, spot sale, stab, staking, statistical prediction, stockjobbery, stockjobbing, study, studying, suppose, supposition, surmise, theoretic, theoretical basis, theoretics, theoria, theoric, theorization, theory, thinking, turn, uncertainty, unverified supposition, vaticination, venture, venture capital, wager, wagering, weighing, wild guess, wondering