Crossword clues for speculation
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Speculation \Spec`u*la"tion\, n. [L. speculatio a spying out, observation: cf. F. sp['e]culation.]
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The act of speculating. Specifically:
Examination by the eye; view. [Obs.]
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Mental view of anything in its various aspects and relations; contemplation; intellectual examination.
Thenceforth to speculations high or deep I turned my thoughts.
--Milton. (Philos.) The act or process of reasoning a priori from premises given or assumed.
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(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.
Sudden fortunes, indeed, are sometimes made in such places, by what is called the trade of speculation.
--A. Smith.Speculation, while confined within moderate limits, is the agent for equalizing supply and demand, and rendering the fluctuations of price less sudden and abrupt than they would otherwise be.
--F. A. Walker. Any business venture in involving unusual risks, with a chance for large profits.
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A conclusion to which the mind comes by speculating; mere theory; view; notion; conjecture.
From him Socrates derived the principles of morality, and most part of his natural speculations.
--Sir W. Temple.To his speculations on these subjects he gave the lofty name of the ``Oracles of Reason.''
--Macaulay. -
Power of sight. [Obs.]
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes.
--Shak. A game at cards in which the players buy from one another trumps or whole hands, upon a chance of getting the highest trump dealt, which entitles the holder to the pool of stakes.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., "intelligent contemplation, consideration; act of looking," from Old French speculacion "close observation, rapt attention," and directly from Late Latin speculationem (nominative speculatio) "contemplation, observation," noun of action from Latin speculatus, past participle of speculari "observe," from specere "to look at, view" (see scope (n.1)).\n
\nMeaning "pursuit of the truth by means of thinking" is from mid-15c. Disparaging sense of "mere conjecture" is recorded from 1570s. Meaning "buying and selling in search of profit from rise and fall of market value" is recorded from 1774; short form spec is attested from 1794.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The process of thinking or meditating on a subject. 2 (context philosophy English) The act or process of reasoning a priori from premises given or assumed. 3 A conclusion to which the mind comes by speculating; mere theory; notion; conjecture. 4 (context business finance English) An investment involving higher-than-normal risk in order to obtain a higher-than-normal return. 5 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. 6 examination by the eye; view. 7 (context obsolete English) Power of sight. 8 A card game in which the players buy from one another trumps or whole hands, upon a chance of getting the highest trump dealt, which entitles the holder to the pool of stakes.
WordNet
n. a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence [syn: guess, conjecture, supposition, surmise, surmisal, hypothesis]
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: conjecture]
an investment that is very risky but could yield great profits; "he knew the stock was a speculation when he bought it" [syn: venture]
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]
Wikipedia
Speculation is the process of thinking about possibilities, or a particular conclusion arrived at from such thought. It may also refer specifically to:
- Speculation (Capital Markets), a financial activity taking place in global financial markets
- Speculative fiction, an umbrella term for imaginative fiction genres, especially science fiction
- Speculative reason, also called theoretical reason or pure reason
- Continental philosophy, an academic term to categorize several schools of speculative thought
- Speculation (card game), a gambling game popular around the turn of the 19th century
Speculation is the purchase of a good with the hope that it will become more valuable at a future date. More formally, speculation is also the practice of engaging in risky financial transactions in an attempt to profit from fluctuations in the market value of a tradable good such as a financial instrument, rather than attempting to profit from the underlying financial attributes embodied in the instrument such as capital gains, interest, or dividends. Many speculators pay little attention to the fundamental value of a security and instead focus purely on price movements. Speculation can in principle involve any tradable good or financial instrument. Speculators are particularly common in the markets for stocks, bonds, commodity futures, currencies, fine art, collectibles, real estate, and derivatives.
Speculators play one of four primary roles in financial markets, along with hedgers who engage in transactions to offset some other pre-existing risk, arbitrageurs who seek to profit from situations where fungible instruments trade at different prices in different market segments, and investors who seek profit through long-term ownership of an instrument's underlying attributes.
Usage examples of "speculation".
Yet without confirmation from a reputable antiquarian, her ideas were little better than idle speculation.
I am a Benthamite, a benevolist, as a logician--but the moment I leave the closet for the world, I lay aside speculation for others, and act for myself.
In consequence of their endlessly varied, constantly recurring, intensely earnest speculations and musings over this contrast of finite restlessness and pain with infinite peace and blessedness, a contrast which constitutes the preaching of their priests, saturates their sacred books, fills their thoughts, and broods over all their life, the Orientals are pervaded with a profound horror of individual existence, and with a profound desire for absorption into the Infinite Being.
Without command, moving like a shoal of fish without a leader but with as ingle purpose, laughing sceptic ally or shouting speculation and comment and query, brandishing shields and ancient firearms, the women clutching their infants, and the older children dancing around them or darting ahead, the shapeless mob streamed out of the broken ground and down into the saucer-shaped valley of the wells.
I do not now especially speak of the daring speculations of the distinguished husband of a beautiful lady whose delightful society is known to us all--need I say I refer to Quincy Brimmer, Esq.
They have thus occasioned modern expounders to speculate about the Gnostic speculations in a manner that is marked by still greater strangeness.
There came a moment of quiescence during which strange, extramundane senses probed the surroundings with what might have been surprise, interest, or cold speculation.
That was over three decades ago, but the stories still went the rounds, with the speculation that some of her more succulent slaves left the pens for the stewpots of Mallat House.
The result shows how uncertain are all speculations in regard to the manurial requirements of plants.
Oblivious to this, oblivious to the speculation in the faces that surrounded them, Marchpane and Cathartes continued on.
The abstract speculations of the metaphysician would not have sufficed for him, nor would the continuous and simple creation of the narrator who narrates to amuse himself, nor would the ardor of the semi-animal of the man-ofpleasure who abandons himself to the frenzy of vice.
Thus, in the infancy of Western metaphysical speculation, the principles of monism, physicalism, and re-ductionism were already prevalent.
A still wider field for speculation than that which grows out of the handwriting, is afforded by a device like the monogram, which, being in a great measure arbitrary, may naturally be expected to exhibit more decidedly the workings of the judgment, the fancy, or perhaps the caprice, of the artist.
In this instance, given the prominence of the patient in question and the way that prominence was goading the newsies speculations, his emotions went far beyond fury.
If the leading theologians of Christendom, such as Anselm, Calvin, and Grotius, have so thoroughly repudiated the original Christian and patristic doctrine of the atonement, and built another doctrine upon their own uninspired speculations, why should our modern sects defer so slavishly to them, and, instead of freely investigating the subject for themselves from the first sources of Scripture and spiritual philosophy, timidly cling to the results reached by these biassed, morbid, and over sharp thinkers?