# speculative
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French speculatif or directly from Late Latin speculativus, from Latin speculor.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈspɛkjuləˌtɪv/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Hyphenation: spec‧u‧la‧tive

### Adjective

speculative (comparative more speculative, superlative most speculative)
* Characterized by speculation; based on guessing, unfounded opinions, or extrapolation.
** 2013, P. L. Thomas, Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres, →ISBN, page 2:Like The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper.
** 2018, James Lambert, “Setting the Record Straight: An In-depth Examination of Hobson-Jobson”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 31, number 4, →DOI, page 487:When not inaccurate, much commentary on the contents of Hobson-Jobson is couched in hedges or relies on speculative estimates in the absence of exact information.
* Pursued as a gamble, with possible large profits or losses; risky.
** 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 April 18, Paul Wilson, The Guardian‎: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.
* Pertaining to financial speculation; Involving or resulting from high-risk investments or trade.
** 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:"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?"
** 2001, Zhiwei Zhang, Speculative Attacks in the Asian Crisis, →ISBN, page 4:In other words, it is critical to know whether a currency is under high speculative pressure for every month in the sample.
** 2010, Sebastian Schneider, Investments of Speculative Capital in Staple Foods, →ISBN, 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.
** 2014, Bradley Jones, Identifying Speculative Bubbles, →ISBN, 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

* speculative application
* speculative damages
* speculative erotica
* speculative evolution
* speculative fiction
* speculative grammar
* speculative grammarian
* speculatively
* Speculative Masonry
* speculative materialism
* speculativeness
* speculative philosophy
* speculative realism

#### Related terms

* speculate
* speculation
* speculativity

#### See also

* conjectural

## Italian
### Adjective

speculative f pl
* feminine plural of speculativo

## Latin
### Adjective

speculātīve
* vocative masculine singular of speculātīvus