English

Adjective

speculative ‎(comparative more speculative, superlative most speculative)

1. Characterized by speculation; based on guessing, unfounded opinions, or extrapolation.
   • 1907, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “chapter I”, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 4241346:

     "Don't dare laugh at us!" smiled his sister. "I wish we were back in Tenth Street. But so many children came […] and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins. Do you like the house?"

   • 2013, P. L. Thomas, Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres, ISBN 9462093806, page 2:

     Like The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper.

2. Pursued as a gamble, with possible large profits or losses; risky.
   • 2010, Sebastian Schneider, Investments of Speculative Capital in Staple Foods, ISBN 3838602455, page 13:

     It was written between 1929 and 1930 and deals with a famine caused by speculative investments of the Meat King of Chicago, Pierpont Mauler.

   • 2011 June 4, Phil McNulty, “England 2-2 Switzerland”, in BBC:

     Tranquillo Barnetta was the grateful beneficiary of uncertain England defending and poor goalkeeping from Joe Hart as he twice saw speculative free-kicks end in the back of the net in the first half.

   • 2015, Paul Wilson, Alexis Sánchez sends Arsenal into final after gallant Reading go the distance (in The Guardian, 18 April 2015)

     Little seemed on when Sánchez cut in from the left and sent a speculative low shot through a crowd of players, but though Federici had it covered he could not hold on to the ball and it squirmed over the line through his legs.

3. Pertaining to financial speculation; Involving or resulting from high-risk investments or trade.
   • 2001, Zhiwei Zhang, Speculative Attacks in the Asian Crisis, ISBN 1451904975, page 4:

     In other words, it is critical to know whether a currency is under high speculative pressure for every month in the sample.

   • 2014, Bradley Jones, Identifying Speculative Bubbles, ISBN 1484394801, page 9:

     Empirical tests of speculative bubbles, including those assessing early warning indicators in the context of financial crises, are forced to contend with other difficult measurement and inference issues.

Derived terms

• speculativeness

Related terms

• speculate
• speculativity

See also

• conjectural

Translations

Italian

Adjective

speculative

1. Feminine plural form of speculativo

Latin

Adjective

speculātīve

1. vocative masculine singular of speculātīvus