speculator

plural speculators

1. One who speculates; an observer; a contemplator.

   a bold and paradoxical speculator

   c. 1683 (date written), Thomas Brown [i.e., Thomas Browne], “(please specify the page)”, in [Thomas Tenison], editor, Certain Miscellany Tracts, London: […] Charles Mearn, […], published 1683, →OCLC

2. One who forms theories; a theorist.

   […] in things of Fact, the People are as much to be believed, as the most subtle Philosophers and Speculators, since here sense is the Judge.

   1666, Joseph Glanvill, Philosophical Considerations concerning Witches and Witchcraft

   1 more example

   For, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, a speculator who had dared to affirm that the human soul is by its nature mortal, and does, in the great majority of cases, actually die with the body, would have been burned alive in Smithfield.

   1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

3. businessOne who speculates; as in investing, one who is willing to take volatile risks upon invested principal for the potential of substantial returns.

   But it would be very unjust to think of all the Railway Members as speculators and simply out to feather their own nests, not that it is fair to think of George Hudson in this light alone.

   1960 March 28, N. Caplan, “The Railway Member of Parliament”, in Railway Magazine, page 207

   1 more example

   He had inherited his not inconsiderable fortune from an American cousin, who had in his time been a successful speculator—a speculator not exactly in crops, which are notoriously kittle-cattle, but in official crop reports.

   1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

4. ball gamesSynonym of field goal.

   Synonyms: field goal

1. A village in the town of Lake Pleasant, Hamilton County, New York, United States.