Word.ws English Dictionary

speculant

speculant noun: a speculator; one who makes speculative (high-risk) investments.

Noun

speculant (plural speculants)

  1. A speculator; one who makes speculative (high-risk) investments.
    • 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
  2. A profiteer or illegal trader.
    • 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
    • There were many agents among the Russian speculants.1994, Anders Johansson, Emancipation and Interdependence, page 163
  3. One who thinks about speculative subjects; one who dreams, extrapolates, or conjectures.
    • 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
    • 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

Adjective

speculant (comparative more speculant, superlative most speculant)

  1. Speculative or hopefully wondering.
    • 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

Examples of speculant in a sentence

  • 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...
  • 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:
  • 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...
  • 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:

Forms of speculant

Noun
pluralspeculants
Adjective
comparativemore speculant
superlativemost speculant

Questions about speculant

What does speculant mean?
Speculant means a speculator; one who makes speculative (high-risk) investments.
How do you use speculant in a sentence?
How much further do we plan to bow to the gurus of Wall Street, to the speculants in Tokyo and London?
What part of speech is speculant?
Speculant can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of speculant?
The plural of speculant is speculants.

Words near speculant in the dictionary

  1. spectrumy
  2. spects
  3. specula
  4. speculaas
  5. speculable
  6. speculant
  7. speculants
  8. specular
  9. specular iron
  10. specular stone
  11. specular stones

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: speculant (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “speculant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/speculant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.