speculant

speculant (plural speculants)

1. A speculator; one who makes speculative (high-risk) investments.
   • 1935, Monthly Review, page 306:

     They moreover also belonged to those securities which speculants neglected at the beginning, which is perhaps sufficiently explained by the position of the rubber market and by the rubber price.

   • 1994, The European Monetary System During the Phase of Transition to European Monetary Union: Future Scenarios and Various Reform Options, page 85:

     The thereby reduced inter currency interest rate in favour of the attacked currency decreases the financing costs of the speculants and, therefore, further increases the incentive to speculate.

   • 2001, Swami Agnivesh, “Striving for a Truly Spiritual Culture”, in Joseph A. Camilleri, editor, Religion and culture in Asia Pacific: Violence or Healing?, Vista Publications, →ISBN, page 137:

     How much further do we plan to bow to the gurus of Wall Street, to the speculants in Tokyo and London?

   • 2014, Peter Leoni, The Greeks and Hedging Explained:

     A third example would be a speculant that enters into the market purely on a direction view.

2. A profiteer or illegal trader.
   • 1915 September, “The Situation in Palestine”, in The Maccabæan: A Magazine of Jewish Life and Letters, volume 27, number 3, page 78:

     In this way the danger threatening the population from unscrupulous speculants was averted and the prices were kept down.

   • 1994, Anders Johansson, Emancipation and Interdependence, page 163:

     There were many agents among the Russian speculants.

   • 2019, Alina-Sandra Cucu, Planning Labour: Time and the Foundations of Industrial Socialism in Romania (International Studies in Social History; volume 32), Berghahn Books, →ISBN:

     For instance, on 6 July 1945, authorities stated that the saboteurs and the speculants ‘will be hit without mercy’.

3. One who thinks about speculative subjects; one who dreams, extrapolates, or conjectures.
   • 1882 January 11, T. Jones, “Economy in Cutting”, in The Weekly record of fashion, volume 7, number 316, page 9:

     To shew that the plan is not the vague dream of a speculant, Mr. Jones sent full-sized patterns pinned on a sheet of paper cut exactly to the length and width of material stated.

   • 1890, Alfred Edersheim, Ella Edersheim, Tohu-Va-Vohu ['Without Form and Void'], page 118:

     This supposed possibility is straightway converted into an actuality, with no better support than that it has occurred as a possibility to the brain of a speculant.

   • 1976, Prix Jeunesse, Fernsehen und Bildung, Television and Socialization Processes in the Family:

     The "gap in between" is thus often occupied by speculants and speculations which are neither in line with research results nor in line with practical considerations.

   • 2018, Amir Levinson, Fireworks in a Dark Universe, World Scientific, page 287:

     On more abstract levels, scientists are trying to understand the connection between black holes and information theory and holography, and speculants are investigating whether wormholes can serve as a basis for the construction of time machines and whether the universe in which we live is one of many universes (estimated at 10500) in a multiverse.

speculant (comparative more speculant, superlative most speculant)

1. Speculative or hopefully wondering.
   • 1843, Bernard M- (of S-), A Dream of a Queen's Reign., page 1:

     I essayed to arise out of my chair, that I might render a beseeming homage unto so excellent a presence but was prevented; amazement having fixed me agaze and half risen, as a statue of wonder; leaving to mine eyes only the power of a speculant admiration.

   • 1907, John Halsham, Lonewood Corner: A Countryman's Horizons, page 13:

     In the new order of things—four years still leaves it new to a slow-moulded temperament—a feeling of detachment which is an old failing grows stronger, a sense of walking about among my kind, speculant, aloof.

   • 1984, Emily Grosholz, The River Painter: Poems:

     Banks stocked with fishers are richer in dreams than signs of fish; the lines lead under uncircled surfaces sharp into fathoms of speculant green.

From speculeren +‎ -ant.

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• Hyphenation: spe‧cu‧lant

speculant m (plural speculanten, diminutive speculantje n)

1. speculator

• speculatie

• → Indonesian: spekulan

From German Spekulant.

speculant m (plural speculanți)

1. speculator