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# speculate

verb (speculate, speculates, speculated, speculating)

«speculate» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. To guess or form ideas about something when you don't have all the facts. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#m1)
2. (money) To buy things like shares, land or currencies hoping to sell them later for more, with a risk of losing money. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#m2)

### In the lessons

In history, science and reading lessons, pupils speculate (make guesses) about why something happened, then look for evidence; teachers say «don't just speculate, check». In news, people speculate about who will win or why something happened. In money lessons, speculating is risky investing.

### Examples

- Scientists speculate that there might be water on that planet. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#x1)
- Everyone speculated about who the new teacher would be. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#x2)
- Don't speculate — read the text and find the answer. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#x3)
- Newspapers speculated about why the singer quit. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#x4)
- People who speculate on shares can win or lose a lot of money. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#x5)
- We can only speculate about how the Stone Age people moved the stones. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#x6)
- I will be an architect, which will place me among those who possess riches and intellect, and who speculate in art. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/#x7)

### Note

Regular verb. Noun: speculation; adjective: speculative. Speculation is a guess, not a proven fact; a good answer says «we can only speculate» when there is no evidence.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «speculate» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/speculate/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«speculate» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/speculate.html) on Mova free.