speculator

noun

spec·​u·​la·​tor ˈspe-kyə-ˌlā-tər 

plural speculators

: someone who speculates: such as

a

: a person who thinks or guesses especially in an idle or casual way about something that is unknown or uncertain

I sat Friday night in the dining room in front of my laptop, the TV in the next room flitting among experts and speculators about what happened in Paris …

—Scott Martelle

"… All that we ought to ask, therefore, is, that the witnesses of our conduct, and the speculators on our motives, should be capable of taking the highest view which the circumstances of the case may admit. …"

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

b

: a person who makes a relatively risky investment in something (such as stocks or real estate) in the hope of making a large short-term profit from market fluctuations

futures/currency speculators

By the late 1870s Edward Pray was living in New York City, still interested in mining but instead now as a speculator in mining stocks.

—Willa Kane

Over the years, many houses have been bought by speculators or real estate companies and rented out.

—Margaret Gillerman

Examples of speculator in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Real estate speculators thrived on artists’ valorizing run-down neighborhoods, buying cheap and selling at enormous profit. —Diedrich Diederichsen, Artforum, 1 Dec. 2025

Frustration will be inevitable for traders who were holding positions when the platform went dark, and speculators questioned why the singular issue had led to an outage across so many markets. —Eleanor Pringle, Fortune, 28 Nov. 2025

The talking heads, always a key ingredient to the Ken Burns Experience, go to great lengths to describe not only the greatness of men like George Washington in particular, but also the darker side of their lives, like Washington’s position as a slaveholder and land speculator. —Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 12 Nov. 2025

Still, some neighborhood residents expressed concern that removing the structure could just prolong problems, as land speculators buying an empty lot might sit on it for years without redeveloping it, which has been the case with vacant lots elsewhere in the neighborhood. —Frederick Melo, Twin Cities, 6 Nov. 2025

Word History

Etymology

speculate + -or entry 1; in earlier sense "observer, lookout," borrowed from Latin speculātor "scout, spy, sentinel," from speculārī "to keep a close watch on, spy out, watch for" + -tor, agent suffix — more at speculate

First Known Use

1555, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for speculator

• activator
• actuator
• agitator
• alligator
• allocator
• alternator
• animator
• annotator
• applicator
• arbitrator
• aspirator
• aviator