Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SPEC'U-LATE, v.i. [L. speculor, to view, to contemplate, from specio, to see; Fr. speculer; It. speculare.]

1. To mediate; to contemplate; to consider a subject by turning it in the mind and viewing it in its different aspects and relations; as, to speculate on political events; to speculate on the probable results of a discovery. – Addison.
2. In commerce, to purchase land, goods, stock or other things, with the expectation of an advance in price, and of selling the articles with a profit by means of such advance; as, to speculate in coffee, or in sugar, or in six per cent stock, or in bank stock.