speculator

Definition

One who speculates; an observer; a contemplator.

Etymology

From Latin speculātor (“spy, explorer, investigator”), from speculor (“to watch, to observe”) + -tor (“-er: forming agent nouns”), from specula (“watchtower”), from speciō (“to watch, to observe”), q.v. In some senses, an agent noun formed within English from speculate. Doublet of spectator.

Example Sentences

• "a bold and paradoxical speculator"
• "[…] in things of Fact, the People are as much to be believed, as the most subtle Philosophers and Speculators, since here sense is the Judge."
• "For, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, a speculator who had dared to affirm that the human soul is by its nature mortal, and does, in the great majority of cases, actually die with the body, would have been burned alive in Smithfield."

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