speculation
/ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/ noun C1- The process or act of thinking or meditating on a subject.
- The act or process of reasoning a priori from premises given or assumed.
- A conclusion to which the mind comes by speculating; mere theory; notion; conjecture.
- An investment involving higher-than-normal risk in order to obtain a higher-than-normal return.
- The act or practice of buying land, goods, shares, etc., in expectation of selling at a higher price, or of selling with the expectation of repurchasing at a lower price; a trading on anticipated fluctuations in price, as distinguished from trading in which the profit expected is the difference between the retail and wholesale prices, or the difference of price in different markets.
- A card game in which the players buy from one another trumps or whole hands, upon a chance of getting the highest trump dealt, which entitles the holder to the pool of stakes.
- The process of anticipating which branch of code will be chosen and executing it in advance.
Plural speculations
From the library
“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.”
“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!
Holmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion, missing no word that was said, with his keen eyes darting to right and to left, and his forehead wrinkled with speculation.
“You never heard any speculation as to what it meant?”
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