speculant

plural speculants

1. A speculator; one who makes speculative (high-risk) investments.

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

   2014, Peter Leoni, The Greeks and Hedging Explained

   3 more examples

   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.

   1935, Monthly Review, page 306

   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.

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

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

   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

2. A profiteer or illegal trader.

   There were many agents among the Russian speculants.

   1994, Anders Johansson, Emancipation and Interdependence, page 163

   2 more examples

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

   1915 September, “The Situation in Palestine”, in The Maccabæan: A Magazine of Jewish Life and Letters, volume 27, number 3, page 78

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

   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

3. One who thinks about speculative subjects; one who dreams, extrapolates, or conjectures.

   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.

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

   3 more examples

   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.

   1882 January 11, T. Jones, “Economy in Cutting”, in The Weekly record of fashion, volume 7, number 316, page 9

   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.

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

   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.

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

comparative more speculant · superlative most speculant

1. Speculative or hopefully wondering.

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

   1984, Emily Grosholz, The River Painter: Poems

   2 more examples

   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.

   1843, Bernard M- (of S-), A Dream of a Queen's Reign., page 1

   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.

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