[f. SPECULATE v.]
1. One who speculates, or indulges in abstract reasoning; a professed or habitual speculator; a theorist. (Very common from c. 1750.)
1613. trans. Pedro Mexio’s Treas. Anc. & Mod. Times, 12/2. The Septuagint … haue commonly traduced it to be in Eden…. Other speculatis[t]es do affirme it to be in Syria.
1621. Granger, Eccl., 24. Let the profoundest speculatist, or curious practitioner, turne the edge of his wit which way he will to finde out some new thing.
1714. trans. T. à Kempis, Chr. Exerc., x. 15. Either a lofty Speculatist, or a subtil Disputant.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 14, ¶ 5. The speculatist is only in danger of erroneous reasoning, but the man involved in life has his own passions, and those of others, to encounter.
1780. Cowper, Progr. Error, 490. Fresh confidence the speculatist takes From ev’ry hair-brain’d proselyte he makes.
1807. Edinb. Rev., X. 369. We shall … lay before our readers the opinions of this clever speculatist.
1849. Darwin, in Life & Lett. (1887), II. 37. This confounded variation … is pleasant to me as a speculatist, though odious to me as a systematist.
1886. A. Weir, Hist. Basis Mod. Europe (1889), 19–20. The social principles recommended by speculatists.
b. With disparaging adjs.
1693. W. Freke, Sel. Ess., xxxiv. 223. ’Tis the Curse of dreaming Speculatists, that they not only have no taste of real Wisdom, but mispend the time that should lead them to it.
1766. Eliz. Carter, Lett. to Mrs. Vesey, 1 July. The most visionary speculatist must sometimes awake to the cares and solicitudes of real life.
1792. W. Roberts, Looker-on (1794), I. 373. An Utopian speculatist might amuse himself with planning a department … which should be called the office of advice.
1827. G. S. Faber, Orig. Expiat. Sacr., 262. The notion of its divine institution originated … with some fantastical innovating speculatists among the modern Puritans.
1850. McCosh, Div. Govt., 217. He is probably an idle dreamer,… or a wild speculatist.
1893. Ch. Times, 20 Oct., 1062. The vapid and airy region of third-rate speculatists.
c. As the title of a book or periodical.
1730. (title) The Speculatist. A Collection of Letters and Essays, Moral and Political, Serious and Humorous: Upon Various Subjects.
[1787. Sir J. Hawkins, Life Johnson, 538. Concanen, one of the Dunciad heroes, in a paper called ‘The Speculatist.’]
d. With adjs. denoting the subject or sphere of speculation.
1802. Beddoes, Hygëia, VIII. 92. The hypothesis of any medical speculatist.
1818. Busby, Gram. Mus., 167. Among those who succeeded Rameau, as musical speculatists, was the celebrated Tartini.
1837–8. Sir W. Hamilton, in Reid’s Wks., I. 53/2. Some of the recent physiological speculatists of Germany.
1850. Gladstone, Glean. (1879), V. lxxxiii. 222. In the other case we may as political speculatists either rank with those [etc.].
2. One who speculates in commerce or finance.
1812. Examiner, 4 Oct., 634/1. The Corn and Mealing Trade has lately got into the hands of Speculatists.
1832. Fraser’s Mag., V. 653. Among other inducements to the cupidity of the queen and speculatists, he affirmed [etc.].
1834. H. Miller, Scenes & Leg., xxx. (1857), 448. The great wealth of the speculatist proved insufficient.
