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speculate
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  • We were speculating as to whether a president would have to resign after that kind of scandal.
    speculating = thoughtfully guessing
  • He can disprove all them socialist theories and godless speculations.   (source)
    speculations = thoughts or theories
  • For sure, the speculation and gossip would include Kya.   (source)
    speculation = guesses or theories
  • There was some speculation that the avalanche that finally took Titus out was specifically engineered to ensure the victor was not a lunatic.   (source)
    speculation = guessing or theorizing
  • At the halfway point, he was an eighth of a mile ahead, and observers began speculating on when the boy in the black shorts was going to collapse.   (source)
    speculating = wondering or guessing
  • One can only speculate about why Franz became so attached to McCandless so quickly, but the affection he felt was genuine, intense, and unalloyed.   (source)
    speculate = guess
  • I was speculating how one day, years from now, I would send the store a dollar in an envelope to cover it, spelling out how guilt had dominated every moment of my life,   (source)
    speculating = thinking
  • There was speculation in his eyes, bright curiosity, but he did not press further.   (source)
    speculation = thought
  • Packed tightly together, the soldiers had at first engaged in animated speculation on what might await them.   (source)
    speculation = guessing or theorizing
  • No one said a word, as if all speculation on the new sky had been exhausted.   (source)
    speculation = thought or theory
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  • Survivor believes he heard an explosion, hinting at a major engine problem, possibly the explosion of a boiler, but this is speculation.   (source)
    speculation = a guess with uncertainty
  • Because the documents remain the source of constant investigation and speculation even today, they are believed to have been moved and rehidden several times.   (source)
    speculation = theorizing
  • I had wondered about Aspen, but seeing as I was running late to one of Silvia's many lessons, I didn't really have a chance to speculate much.   (source)
    speculate = think
  • That evening we spent most of our run speculating about what Myers would tell us.   (source)
    speculating = wondering or discussing
  • However, they enjoyed themselves trying to make Hagrid tell them what the tasks in the tournament were going to be, speculating which of the entrants were likely to be selected as champions, and wondering whether Fred and George were beardless yet.   (source)
    speculating = wondering or guessing
  • When conversation at our table reaches a lull, I hear every word they say. They are speculating about the ranks.   (source)
    speculating = guessing or theorizing
  • They didn't get many visitors in Snakewater, and there had been a lot of speculation about what a lawyer from the Environmental Protection Agency would want to see Alan Grant about.   (source)
    speculation = guesses or theories
  • These were abstract speculations for the first month of her stay, as she had little to say to Jem or me, and we saw her only at mealtimes and at night before we went to bed.   (source)
    speculations = thoughts
  • The recruits speculate in eager whispers.   (source)
    speculate = wonder or consider
  • In an apse of the church sat their wives and children, the objects during the tedious winter months of our ceaseless, ritual speculation (Why did he ever marry her? What in the world ever made her marry him? How could the two of them ever have produced those little monsters?).   (source)
    speculation = thinking and wondering
  • On a promo for the news tonight the press is speculating that the man that killed Polly Klass also took and killed me.   (source)
    speculating = guessing or theorizing
  • People began to mutter and speculate, the volume of their conversations rising again.   (source)
    speculate = wonder or consider
  • Radar never told us anything about his love life, but this did not dissuade us from frequent speculation.   (source)
    speculation = guessing and theorizing
  • They'd sit up late talking in hushed voices about their ex-husbands and speculating about new boyfriends, while the kids played Trouble and Sorry! in the next room.   (source)
    speculating = wondering
  • A theological speculation presented itself.   (source)
    speculation = theory
  • It is not hard to see how easily many could have been led to believe that the time of confusion had been brought upon them by deep and darkling forces. No hint of such speculation appears on the court record, but social disorder in any age breeds such mystical suspicions, and...   (source)
    speculation = line-of-thought
  • Scientists knew from studying HeLa that cancer cells could divide indefinitely, and they'd speculated for years about whether cancer was caused by an error in the mechanism that made cells die when they reached their Hayflick Limit.   (source)
    speculated = guessed or theorized
  • And there's been some speculation that you may … have some kind of problem.   (source)
    speculation = thought and guesses (without certainty)
  • Like you say, it's pure speculation.   (source)
    speculation = an uncertain theory or guess
  • There was speculation on the details of their relationship, the frequency of their meetings and how they were arranged, and the complicity of her husband, who was given to excesses of sodomy with the blacks on his sugar plantation.   (source)
    speculation = guessing and theorizing
  • "This is not a realm open to your speculation," the Baron warned.   (source)
    speculation = guessing or theorizing
  • But speculation such as these, though they absorbed Dewey, did not gratify him or give him a sense of "getting somewhere."   (source)
    speculation = guesses or theories
  • What could be so important that Helen would call me at home? She knew the risks posed by Moody's temper, and whatever was happening outweighed the peril. I had to live with nothing but speculation for a week, because the call caused Moody to raise his guard. He made sure that he or Nasserine accompanied me on my marketing trips. The delay was agonizing.   (source)
  • She heard the boys speculate that the branding would be done in another week, which meant they were close to starting the drive.   (source)
    speculate = guess
  • This is because they argue about what it means to be among the Living, and because they don't know they can only speculate,   (source)
    speculate = guess or theorize
  • He brooded in ponderous speculation over the cryptic message he had just received.   (source)
    speculation = thought and theorizing
  • The camps were alive with rumors and speculation.   (source)
    speculation = guesses or theories
  • One of the shots misses the president's car completely, and decades later there is still speculation whether it was the first or third round.   (source)
    speculation = thoughts and guesses
  • To talk of what would have happened if we had acted differently is nothing but purely theoretical speculation.   (source)
    speculation = guessing
  • Uncle Buson was the one I liked to speculate on. He didn't die. He just disappeared.   (source)
    speculate = think
  • Facts—not speculation—support this opinion.   (source)
    speculation = an opinion or theory not supported by clear evidence
  • He points out that Aristophanes, in his Clouds, had a character speculating that rain was Zeus urinating through a sieve, mistaking it for a chamberpot--and that no one ever bothered to charge Aristophanes with impiety.   (source)
    speculating = guessing or thinking
  • We had all laughed about it, speculated on who those mean boys were and then...   (source)
    speculated = wondered or guessed
  • And they speculated on and on about Red troubles in the south part of the Wobbish country, because that was the most important topic of conversation around, and since nobody knowed anything accurate anyway, ...   (source)
    speculated = discussed and thought
  • He said close as he could speculate I was right in the middle of Luzana.   (source)
    speculate = guess
  • Their origin was still no-known, their biology a source of endless speculation.   (source)
    speculation = guesses and theories
  • The doctor looked at him, speculating. "I'd think you'd want to settle down."   (source)
    speculating = guessing (thinking aloud)
  • But by degrees the flood of music drove all speculations out of his mind.   (source)
    speculations = thoughts
  • She was interrupted in the midst of these uneasy speculations by the sound of the telephone bell ringing in the other room.   (source)
  • When the war would be over, that scared me, that speculation.   (source)
    speculation = thought
  • It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.   (source)
    speculation = thoughts and guesses
  • He looked at her in an almost kindly way, speculation in his eyes.   (source)
    speculation = thought
  • Each member of the family had a little cache of gifts hidden somewhere in the house away from the others. It was very dishonorable for anyone to snoop on the day before Christmas so no one ever did but there was no harm in speculating upon where the gifts might be hidden.   (source)
    speculating = wondering or guessing
  • Clif Clawson, with a chasm of yawning, speculated, "Praying in the lab!"   (source)
    speculated = guessed
  • I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends. It's really an interesting speculation.   (source)
    speculation = line-of-thought
  • Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject.   (source)
    speculating = thinking or guessing
  • It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation.   (source)
    speculation = theorizing or guessing
  • "Granted; as many as you like," he returned, glancing down into her eyes that were full of thoughtfulness and some speculation.   (source)
    speculation = guessing or theorizing
  • Jurgis had time enough to stare and speculate, for it was two hours before he was summoned.   (source)
    speculate = think
  • All this is speculation; Mrs. Wilcox has left few clear indications behind her.   (source)
    speculation = an uncertain guess
  • He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signalling us.   (source)
    speculation = theories
  • There are no newspapers, a circumstance which, with the absence of games, might lead an intelligent spectator to the most far reaching conclusions as to the sort of people who live in the villa. Such speculations are checked, however, on this delightfully fine afternoon, by the appearance at a little gate in a paling an our left, of Henry Straker in his professional costume.   (source)
    speculations = thoughts, guesses, or theories
  • No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you.   (source)
    speculation = guess in the absence of certainty
  • Since Jim's arrival had been made known before daylight by the gun fired from the fort and the beating of the big drum there, the fear that had hung over Patusan had broken and subsided like a wave on a rock, leaving the seething foam of excitement, curiosity, and endless speculation.   (source)
    speculation = guessing and theorizing
  • But he did not pursue the speculation, and without replying, he fell to musing on a quite different and personal matter.   (source)
    speculation = line-of-thought (to figure why something is so)
  • "Don't you think," he continued further, in a tone of sympathetic speculation, "that a really clever woman, in your place, might bring him round at last?"   (source)
    speculation = thought
  • It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action.   (source)
    speculate = think
  • Who can tell what just criticisms Murr the Cat may be passing on us beings of wider speculation?   (source)
    speculation = thought
  • It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this speculation.   (source)
  • I sat, a model of patience, trying to attract his absorbed attention from its engrossing speculation; till he grew irritable, and got up, asking why I would not allow him to have his own time in taking his meals? and saying that on the next occasion I needn't wait: I might set the things down and go.   (source)
  • It is time now to proceed to the last part of the speculation.   (source)
    speculation = theory
  • In the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a never-ending source of speculation and astonishment.   (source)
    speculation = thought
  • In a word, the great speculating fever which breaks out every now and then in the country had raged to an alarming degree, and everybody was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing.   (source)
    speculating = making risky investments
  • "Yet it is hard," she sometimes thought, "that this poor man cannot come to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation!"   (source)
    speculation = guessing and thinking
  • The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous, and it was matter of speculation to me, who was one of the number, to observe the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers, and how much they admir'd and respected him, notwithstanding his common abuse of them, by assuring them that they were naturally half beasts and half devils.   (source)
    speculation = thought
  • "Maybe it had something to do with all that hamburger meat," she speculated.†   (source)
  • These Montforts had been prosperous once — they'd made a bundle on railroads — but through risky speculations and inertia they were already halfway down the slippery slope.†   (source)
  • Over breakfast, they speculated over how the trash had gotten there.†   (source)
  • "Local carrier networks are probably jammed," I speculated.†   (source)
  • For years gunters had speculated that Anorak still roamed the OASIS, now as an autonomous NPC.†   (source)
  • Her mind was awhirl with speculations about Kate.†   (source)
  • I reflected as I opened the screen door that speculations about my father were never idle or entertaining, but always something to be flinched from.†   (source)
  • Speculated about where they would take us, what it would be like, how many others would be there.†   (source)
  • People have speculated on how to make crop soil out of Martian dirt for decades.†   (source)
  • And in a few years you will be married and living in your parents' house," Ghosh speculated.†   (source)
  • And as exciting as it is to look at these pictures and create wild speculations, we must keep in mind that Queen Levana has not yet attacked Earth, and we have no evidence that these creatures are intended for such an attack.†   (source)
  • Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.†   (source)
  • Still, I wondered if I'd even be able to hold her hand, and I speculated about whether I could talk her into taking a little detour on the way to Lenoir.†   (source)
  • He speculated that there was too much shade from the trees.†   (source)
  • I speculated on photochemical effects that would have created the luminescent quality.†   (source)
  • I speculated, distracting myself.†   (source)
  • The press speculated that scores of fairgoers must have disappeared within the building.†   (source)
  • Here's the caveat: seeing and blindness are generally at issue in many works, even where there is no hint of blindness on the part of windows, alleys, horses, speculations, or persons.†   (source)
  • Denver neither believed nor commented on Sethe's speculations, and she lowered her eyes and never said a word about the cold house.†   (source)
  • Call-ups for the Siemens factory had ceased and we speculated that it had been hit in one of the bombing raids that came within earshot almost nightly now.†   (source)
  • He speculated on how far we were from the abandoned camp, what sort of primitive accommodations might be available there.†   (source)
  • Well, they're dead," Carter speculated.†   (source)
  • And when today one hears talk about his lordship, when one hears the sort of foolish speculations concerning his motives as one does all too frequently these days, I am pleased to recall the memory of that moment as he spoke those heartfelt words in the near-empty banqueting hall.†   (source)
  • My companions passed the time by engaging in all kinds of transactions as they acquired goods and speculated on what to buy, how to smuggle it into the ghetto and how to sell it most profitably there.†   (source)
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  • She speculates in the stock market in areas of medicine in which she is expert.
    speculates = invests
  • Only fifty miles from the limousines and exclusive tennis clubs and lush green fairways of Palm Springs, the west shore of the Salton Sea had once been the site of intense real estate speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky financial investment
  • My blood runs cold when Peter talks about becoming a criminal or a speculator; of course, he's joking, but I still have the feeling he's afraid of his own weakness. ... Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy.   (source)
    speculating = profiting from only invested money
  • She wore that gold chain for years, and every time I looked at it I had the same vivid flashback to my brief and ultimately successful career in gold speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • Father said that surveyors always knew about the good deals on land and could get rich speculating.   (source)
    speculating = investing
  • A strong Egyptian-cotton speculating industry means a much stronger America.   (source)
  • His wealth was in land, upwards of 54,000 acres, including some 8,000 acres at Mount Vernon, another 4,000 acres in Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nearly all of which he had acquired for speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • I have a job, a career that demands blocks of time and a great deal of my attention. I can't simply put that into hiatus while I speculate on my chances of getting a manuscript published.   (source)
    speculate = invest in a risky manner
  • He had sold his boats when blockading grew too hazardous, and he was now openly engaged in food speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • He had lost a large part of his personal fortune in careless stock speculation; but he had enough left to insure some comfort for the rest of his life.   (source)
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  • In charge of the campaign was Mr. James Blausser, who had recently come to town to speculate in land.   (source)
    speculate = risk money in an investment
  • Sir Charles, as is well known, made large sums of money in South African speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • It wasn't a speculation, it was an investment.   (source)
  • He was carried over the difficult places in spite of himself; and he went plunging away in mad career—a very Mazeppa-ride upon the wild horse Speculation.   (source)
  • A speculation, Sir Robert!   (source)
  • Her father, a prosperous local solicitor, had built Windy Corner, as a speculation at the time the district was opening up, and, falling in love with his own creation, had ended by living there himself.   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • Do you know whether to laugh or cry at the notion that they, poor devils! will drive a team of continents as they drive a four-in-hand; turn a jostling anarchy of casual trade and speculation into an ordered productivity; and federate our colonies into a world-Power of the first magnitude?   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more?   (source)
    speculate = risk money in an investment
  • When Fyodor Pavlovitch, who first came into contact with Grushenka over a piece of speculation, ended to his own surprise by falling madly in love with her, old Samsonov, gravely ill as he was, was immensely amused.   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • Do you call it work to get hold of concessions and speculate with them?   (source)
    speculate = make money
  • I like neither Bulstrode nor speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been a better speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky venture
  • But, as he knew no more about farming than calico, as he rode his horses instead of sending them to plough, drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting-boots with the fat of his pigs, he was not long in finding out that he would do better to give up all speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that ruined him.   (source)
  • Then you do not speculate?   (source)
    speculate = risk money in investment
  • The country had been deluged with government bills; the famous Land Bank had been established; there had been a rage for speculating; the people had run mad with schemes for new settlements, for building cities in the wilderness; land-jobbers went about with maps of grants and townships and Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but which everybody was ready to purchase.   (source)
    speculating = making risky investments
  • This was so material an amendment of his late expectations that it greatly contributed to smooth the descent of his pride; and by no means without its effect was the private intelligence, which he was at some pains to procure, that the Fullerton estate, being entirely at the disposal of its present proprietor, was consequently open to every greedy speculation.   (source)
    speculation = money-making venture
  • These people were something Germanic and sectarian, crossbred with seventh-generation Puritans — an industrious but fervent mix that produced, in addition to the usual collection of virtuous, lumpen farmers, three circuit riders, two inept land speculators, and one petty embezzler — chancers with a visionary streak and one eye on the horizon.†   (source)
  • That it is a monument to the privilege of the nobility, the effeteness of the intelligentsia, and the predatory pricing of speculators.†   (source)
  • The houses were in deplorable shape, but they were still beautiful, and in recent years speculators and upper-income whites started buying them.†   (source)
  • Perhaps there were those who dreamed of owning whole townships, even the whole county, but the history of Zebulon County was not the history of wealthy investment, but of poor people who got lucky, who were sold a bill of goods by speculators and discovered they had received a gift of riches beyond the speculators' wildest lies, land whose fertility surpassed hope.†   (source)
  • Speculators thrived and created eerie landscapes.†   (source)
  • The speculators were already at work.†   (source)
  • So, stupid and reckless I may be, but I am going to see Kamal Abdic, because unlike all the speculators, I have seen Scott.†   (source)
  • Her father, a haberdasher on Seattle's First Avenue and a real estate speculator, frowned on Arthur, who seemed to him a lumberjack posing as a reporter, a man without prospects and unworthy of his daughter; nevertheless the two were married and settled down to the business of rearing children.†   (source)
  • A despicable stock-market speculator.†   (source)
  • Generals with braided caps, uranium speculators, a man and woman from the Bundesbank.†   (source)
  • They moved to the neighboring town of Weslaco, a flat, square speculator's grid slapped down on the Valley floor.†   (source)
  • The black-market came to an end at the very moment when the Presidential Palace was bombed, because speculators were threatened with martial law and execution by firing squad.†   (source)
  • Americans are angry with laws that affect personal rights and laws that profit speculators while snaring the less-informed citizens.†   (source)
  • He'd been born into a wealthy family of Polish Jews, clothiers originally, but that was long before his time: his father was an art speculator, a man who bought up the work of promising young painters, sculptors, and ceramicists all over the world, particularly those in Paris, then waited, to put it politely, for their stock to rise.†   (source)
  • Of propertied classes and speculators when they have long since been abolished by earlier decrees!†   (source)
  • I know it's a waste of breath trying to convince you you're not a cunning real estate speculator.†   (source)
  • Where did you get all your money? Speculating?   (source)
    speculating = making risky investments
  • He despised him for the cold-blooded way he had acted in his speculations during the war and for the fact that he had not been in the army.   (source)
    speculations = money-making investments
  • As for Rhett, he had enjoyed the town's hatred since his speculations during the war and he had not further endeared himself to his fellow citizens by his alliances with the Republicans since then.   (source)
  • Part I got from food speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • They all made their money speculating in food like your loving husband or out of dubious government contracts or in shady ways that won't bear investigation.   (source)
    speculating = guessing without certainty; or reflecting (thinking) deeply upon a subject
  • For some months, he was the most popular and romantic figure the town knew, despite his previous reputation, despite the faint rumors that he was engaged not only in blockading but in speculating on foodstuffs, too.   (source)
    speculating = buying and selling at profit
  • LADY CHILTERN: This fraudulent speculation--   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • You are not going to lend your support to this Argentine speculation?   (source)
  • The success of Mr. Sowerberry's ingenious speculation, exceeded even his most sanguine hopes.   (source)
    speculation = money-making venture
  • If it had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • You spy and speculate on people's business with me, do you?   (source)
    speculate = risk money in an investment
  • Malthus was a well-known capitalist, who had made his money by speculation in railway shares.   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • How could I speculate when I already have so much trouble in regulating my income?   (source)
    speculate = risk money in investment
  • In matters of speculation, however, though "man proposes," "money
    disposes."   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • Would he be what he is, if he hadn't speculated?'   (source)
    speculated = made risky investments
  • That M. Danglars speculates, whereas he never does.   (source)
    speculates = makes risky investments
  • I have made money at the same time by speculations which have succeeded.   (source)
    speculations = risky investments
  • More likely he has been speculating on the Bourse, and has lost money.   (source)
    speculating = making a risky investment
  • Ah, yes; he told me it was you who sacrificed to the demon of speculation.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • The movies were almost as vital to Kennicott and the other solid citizens of Gopher Prairie as land-speculation and guns and automobiles.   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • I lost the little money I had in an unlucky speculation and I couldn't afford to go on with the medical.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • What did you speculate in, Jim?   (source)
    speculate = invest
  • Yet these army and navy men, these bureau experts, and organizers of multitudinous leagues, were cheerful on three or four thousand a year, while Kennicott had, outside of his land speculations, six thousand or more, and Sam had eight.   (source)
    speculations = investments
  • Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men who treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you, Robert, not for you.   (source)
    speculation = profit-making venture
  • The affair to which you allude was no more than a speculation. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill; it might have been rejected.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • A brilliant, daring speculation.   (source)
  •   'Speculate with it,' said Mrs Nickleby.
      'Spec--u--late, my dear?' said Mr Nickleby, as though in doubt.
      'Why not?' asked Mrs Nickleby.
      'Because, my dear, if we SHOULD lose it,' rejoined Mr Nickleby, who was a slow and time-taking speaker, 'if we SHOULD lose it, we shall no longer be able to live, my dear.'   (source)
    speculate = risk money in an investment
  • …fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W. himself, on pretence of such speculations or otherwise;   (source)
    speculations = risky investments
  • As he felt the king's pulse, Coictier assumed an air of greater and greater alarm. Louis XI. watched him with some anxiety.  Coictier grew visibly more gloomy.  The brave man had no other farm than the king's bad health.  He speculated on it to the best of his ability.   (source)
    speculated = tried to make profit
  • And he has had some experience in sending goods out,—a small part of a cargo as a private speculation; and he thinks if I could begin to do a little in the same way, I might make some money.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • I proposed to borrow of Mr Rugg (or of Miss Rugg; it's the same thing; she made a little money by a speculation in the Common Pleas once).   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • It was known, too, that the young person had, especially of late, been given to what is called "speculation," and that she had shown marked abilities in that direction, so that many people began to say that she was no better than a Jew.   (source)
    speculation = risky investments
  • He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that he at once determined to mention the matter to his father, and get his consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to the purchase of a small cargo.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in India who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be picked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would suffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must ever be the first consideration.   (source)
    speculation = a risky venture
  • ...at a period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he was morally and legally responsible, in hand;   (source)
    speculations = risky investments
  • "No, I mean mine, ma'am," said Pancks, "for it was my misfortune to lead him into a ruinous investment." (Mr Pancks still clung to that word, and never said speculation.)   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • …that the poverty of Russia arises not merely from the anomalous distribution of landed property and misdirected reforms, but that what had contributed of late years to this result was the civilization from without abnormally grafted upon Russia, especially facilities of communication, as railways, leading to centralization in towns, the development of luxury, and the consequent development of manufactures, credit and its accompaniment of speculation—all to the detriment of agriculture.   (source)
    speculation = risky investments
  • …an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased by the registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, not even ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and crammed the public's wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other object than to get rid of them cheaply.   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • It would not, he acknowledged, be a bad speculation for Guest & Co. to buy Dorlcote Mill, and carry on the business, which was a good one, and might be increased by the addition of steam power; in which case Tulliver might be retained as manager.   (source)
  • I WILL speculate, my dear.   (source)
    speculate = risk money in investment
  • Speculation is a round game; the players see little or nothing of their cards at first starting; gains MAY be great—and so may losses.   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • There was to be a gathering, it seemed, of the different ladies and gentlemen at Portsmouth on the morrow, whither the father and sons were proceeding (not for the regular season, but in the course of a wandering speculation), after fulfilling an engagement at Guildford with the greatest applause.   (source)
    speculation = money-making venture
  • ...this promising lad commenced usurer on a limited scale at school; putting out at good interest a small capital of slate-pencil and marbles, and gradually extending his operations until they aspired to the copper coinage of this realm, in which he speculated to considerable advantage.   (source)
    speculated = made risky loans
  • On this conviction I allow her to speculate, she having her bank and her stockbroker; she speculated and lost.   (source)
    speculate = risk money in investment
  • …after five years, when Mrs Nickleby had presented her husband with a couple of sons, and that embarrassed gentleman, impressed with the necessity of making some provision for his family, was seriously revolving in his mind a little commercial speculation of insuring his life next quarter-day, and then falling from the top of the Monument by accident, there came, one morning, by the general post, a black-bordered letter to inform him how his uncle, Mr Ralph Nickleby, was dead, and had…   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
  • She will remain at home, read novels, and speculate at cards, since she can no longer do so on the Bourse.   (source)
    speculate = risk money
  • Not confining himself to theory, or permitting his faculties to rust, even at that early age, in mere abstract speculations, this promising lad commenced usurer on a limited scale at school; putting out at good interest a small capital of slate-pencil and marbles, and gradually extending his operations until they aspired to the copper coinage of this realm, in which he speculated to considerable advantage.   (source)
    speculations = investments
  • Do I know M. Debray?--do I wish to know him?--do I wish to know that he gives advice?--do I wish to follow it?--do I speculate? No; you do all this, not I.   (source)
    speculate = risk money in an investment
  • And, after him, came the Scotch member, with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the speeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do, and established in the hearers' minds that there was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • As the deceased had taken no further notice of his nephew in his lifetime, than sending to his eldest boy (who had been christened after him, on desperate speculation) a silver spoon in a morocco case, which, as he had not too much to eat with it, seemed a kind of satire upon his having been born without that useful article of plate in his mouth, Mr Godfrey Nickleby could, at first, scarcely believe the tidings thus conveyed to him.   (source)
    speculation = hope of financial reward
  • On this conviction I allow her to speculate, she having her bank and her stockbroker; she speculated and lost.   (source)
    speculated = made a risky investment
  • "Ma foi," said Danglars, "it would not be a bad speculation, I fancy, and you know I am a speculator."   (source)
    speculation = investment
  • For the demon of speculation drew a line, or in other words projected a street, at the farther side of the kitchen-garden.   (source)
    speculation = money-making investment
  • It is true she speculates with her own money, not mine; nevertheless, you can understand that when 700,000. francs leave the wife's pocket, the husband always finds it out.   (source)
    speculates = makes risky investments
  • "Without reckoning," added Monte Cristo, "that he is on the eve of entering into a sort of speculation already in vogue in the United States and in England, but quite novel in France."   (source)
    speculation = risky investment
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