| 释义 |
speculative, a. and n.|ˈspɛkjʊlətɪv|
Also 5 speculatif, -ijf, -iff, -yff, 6 -ife, -yf(e, -yue, 6–7 -iue.
[a. OF. speculatif, -ive (mod.F. spéculatif, -ive, = It. specul-, specolativo, Sp. and Pg. especulativo), or ad. late L. speculātīv-us, f. the ppl. stem of speculārī to speculate.]
A. adj.
1. Of the nature of, based upon, characterized by, speculation or theory in contrast to practical or positive knowledge:
a. Of knowledge.
c1380Wyclif Sel. Wks. I. 241 Þis cunnyng was not speculatif. 1555Eden Decades (Arb.) 277 They..confessed that the ordinarie pilottes and mariners ignorant in Cosmographi, are not to bee compared to men of speculatiue knowleage. 1585Blagrave (title), The Mathematical Iewel,..compiled and published for the Furtherance..of Gentlemen and others desirous of Speculatiue Knowledge. 1612Brinsley Lud. Lit. xxi. (1627) 252 Other speculative or more curious knowledge in Quiddities. a1674Clarendon Surv. Leviath. (1676) 117 From his speculative knowledge of man-kind. 1736Butler Anal. i. v. Wks. 1874 I. 103 A practical sense of things, very different from a mere speculative knowledge. 1748Richardson Clarissa (1811) V. ix. 124 She has a world of knowledge: knowledge speculative, as I may say, but no experience. 1850C. G. B. Daubeny Atom. The. i. (ed. 2) 4 One more proof of the benefits arising from experimental science, and of the unexpected advances in speculative knowledge. 1865Dickens Mut. Fr. i. v, His knowledge of its affairs was mostly speculative and all wrong.
b. Of special sciences, or parts of these.
c1400Lanfranc's Cirurg. 15 Alle þese þingis..ben but techinge of medicyns [v.r. medycine] speculatijf. 1561T. Norton Calvin's Inst. Pref., An arte of brawlyng whiche these men call Speculatiue Diuinitie. 1597Morley Introd. Mus. Annot., As for the diuision, Musicke is either speculatiue or practicall. 1601Holland Pliny II. 344 Chrysippus..altered the Theoricke and speculatiue Physicke of Hippocrates and Prodicus, with all their principles. 1665Boyle Occas. Refl. v. i. (1848) 296 The diligent Studies of Speculative and Polemical Divinity. 1730Chamberlayne Relig. Philos. Pref. p. xx, Euclid, Algebra, and other Speculative Parts of the Mathematicks. 1741Watts Improv. Mind (1801) 112 Endeavour to apply every speculative study, as far as possible, to some practical use. 1859Sir W. Hamilton Lect. (1877) I. vii. 111 Theoretical, called likewise speculative,..philosophy has for its highest end mere truth or knowledge. 1881Froude Short Stud. (1883) IV. ii. i. 168 The speculative part of it [religion] was accepted because it was assumed to be true.
c. In general use.
a1483Liber Niger in Househ. Ord. (1790) 50 Men of worshipp, endowed with vertues, morall and speculatiff. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 31 b, As well in matters speculatyue as practyue. 1615Crooke Body of Man 26 Many of these nice and fine points..serue rather for a speculatiue pleasure & admiration, then be of any vse in the art of physick or Chirurgery. 1677A. Yarranton Eng. Improv. Addr. Ld. Windsor, They have given the World sufficient Tests of the vast difference betwixt Speculative Notions and Practical Experiments. 1708Swift Sacram. Test Wks. 1755 II. i. 127 The bare opinion of his being vicar of Christ is but a speculative point. 1761Hume Hist. Eng. III. xlvi. 24 The king's despotism was more speculative than practical. 1812Sir H. Davy Chem. Philos. 17 The speculative ideas of the Arabians were more or less adopted by their European disciples. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. ii. I. 247 He..had a languid speculative liking for republican institutions. 1880McCarthy Own Times xlv. III. 350 Even against speculative dangers a wise people will always take precautions.
2. a. Of persons: Given to speculation; inclined to theorize or indulge in conjectural reasoning.
c1546G. Joye in Gardiner Declar. Joye (1546) 53 Euery speculatyue pharisay and idle hypocrite. 1555Eden Decades (Arb.) 218 If there bee any dyfference.., it canne not bee perceaued but by the iudgement of speculatiue men. 1609J. Dowland Ornith. Microl. 5 A Speculative Musitian excels the Practick. 1660Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. (1682) 123 To dwell upon all the several Reflexions, that a Speculative Wit might make. 1712Addison Spect. No. 305 ⁋8 Six Professors, who, it seems, are to be Speculative Statesmen. 1785Reid Intell. Powers i. viii. 245 Why have speculative men laboured so anxiously to analyse our solitary operations? 1813Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. (1814) 339 He is too speculative a writer to awaken confidence in his results. 1841Helps Ess., Pract. Wisd. (1842) 4 Many persons are considered speculative merely because they are of a searching nature. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xix. IV. 327 The only statesman, indeed, active or speculative, who did not share in the general delusion was Edmund Burke.
absol.1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. i. x, The various opinions that have employed the speculative upon this subject.
b. Similarly of the soul, mind, etc.
1570Dee Math. Pref. *j, Ascend, and mount vp (with Speculatiue winges) in spirit. 1599Nashe Lenten Stuffe Wks. (Grosart) V. 300 The grossest kind of fire that..illumines my speculatiue soule. 1793T. Beddoes Math. Evid. 10 They seem to promise, to speculative minds, a sort of independance upon external things. 1809–10Coleridge Friend (1818) III. 81 A certain number of speculative minds is necessary to a cultivated state of society.
†c. Given to pry or search into something. Obs.
1605Bacon Adv. Learn. i. iii. §7 To be speculatiue into another man, to the end to know how to worke him,..proceedeth from a heart that is double. 1612― Ess., Counsel (Arb.) 322 Councellors should not be too speculatiue into their Soueraignes person.
3. Of life, etc.: Spent in, devoted to, speculation.
1579Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 142 A trifold kinde of life, Actiue,..Speculatiue, which is continuall meditation and studie. 1643Milton Divorce ii. xix. Wks. 1851 IV. 115 Christ himselfe hath taught us..even for a bodily healing to dispence with that holy and speculative rest of Sabbath. 1670Clarendon Ess. Tracts (1727) 167 An active and practical condition of life, or a speculative repose. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 54 There was..no walk of speculative or of active life, in which Jesuits were not to be found.
4. Of faculties, etc.: Adapted for, exercised in, speculation († or vision).
1604Shakes. Oth. i. iii. 271 When light wing'd Toyes Of feather'd Cupid, seele with wanton dulnesse My speculatiue, and offic'd Instrument. 1605― Macb. v. iv. 19 Thoughts speculatiue, their vnsure hopes relate. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. 408 That Perfect Happiness is a Speculative or Contemplative Energy, may be made manifest from hence. 1703Atterbury Serm. (1734) II. 126 The other, being a mere speculative Power, hath no Contrary in the Mind of Man to struggle with. 1860Mill Repr. Govt. (1865) 6/2 If any one requires to be convinced that speculative thought is one of the chief elements of social power. 1896Duke of Argyll Philos. Belief 11 Our speculative faculties are altogether untrustworthy on such subjects.
†5. Pertaining to vision; optical. Obs.
1656Blount Glossogr., Catopticks, professors of the Opticks, or art speculative.
6. Suitable for observation or watching; speculatory. Chiefly poet.
1709Pope Lett. (1735) I. 81, I have been inform'd, that you have left your speculative Angle in the Widow's Coffee-house. 1782Cowper Jackdaw 13 Fond of the speculative height, Thither he wings his airy flight. 1784― Task i. 289 Now roves the eye; And, posted on this speculative height, Exults in its command. 1821Wordsw. Eclipse Sun 1 High on her speculative tower Stood Science.
7. a. Of persons: Given to, or engaging in, commercial or financial speculation. speculative builder, a builder who has houses erected without securing buyers in advance. Hence speculative-built adj. Cf. spec a.
1763Sir S. T. Janssen Smuggling laid open 28 Several Persons, who go under the Denomination of Speculative Buyers, purchase Teas there, meerly on an Expectation of the Price rising afterwards. 1776Adam Smith W.N. i. x. (1869) I. 119 The speculative merchant exercises no one regular..business. 1799Hull Advertiser 6 Oct. 3/3 To keep down the price of corn which speculative men were trying to advance. 1813Scott Let. in Lockhart (1837) III. ii. 107 Any rare printed book which a speculative bookseller might purchase with a view to re-publication. 18681st Rep. Comm. Employment Children, Young Persons, & Women in Agric. 35 in Parl. Papers 1867–8 XVII. 95 Cottages..have been put up by speculative builders of the flimsiest materials. 1902G. K. Chesterton Twelve Types 13 The colossal diagram of streets and houses is..the opium dream of a speculative builder. 1933Archit. Rev. LXXIV. 120 There is a possibility, of course, that the speculative builder who has bought this estate is an intelligent man. 1960Pidgeon & Crosby Anthology of Houses 94, 2-storey, speculative-built terrace houses. 1973Listener 25 Jan. 118/1 The idiocies and crudities permitted to the developer—or, as I prefer to call him, the speculative builder.
b. Of the nature of, characterized by, or involving speculation.
1799Hull Advertiser 6 Oct. 3/3 Articles which ought..to be exempt from all speculative interest. 1848Mill Pol. Econ. iii. xxiv. §2 (1876) 395 There are two states of the market, one which may be termed the quiescent state, the other the expectant or speculative state. 1879H. George Progr. & Pov. viii. iii. (1881) 371 How speculative rent checks production. 1907Standard 19 Jan. 2/4 Heavy speculative transactions have been in progress in tin for weeks past.
c. Forming an object of speculation.
1890Daily News 30 Sept. 2/5 The market for speculative beetroot continues dull and prices to decline.
8. Special collocations: speculative fiction (see quot. 1953); speculative grammar, a late medieval scholastic grammatical system in which the structure of language is interpreted through scholastic philosophy in terms of our perception and representation of the world by the ‘modes of signification’ (modi significandi) (cf. modistæ); any one of the grammatical theories arising from this analysis.
1953R. A. Heinlein in Library Jrnl. July 1188/1 The term ‘speculative fiction’ may be defined negatively as being fiction about things that have not happened. 1978Speculative fiction [see sci-fi].
1951R. H. Robins Anc. & Mediaeval Gram. Theory in Europe iii. 80 Most of these philosophical or ‘speculative’ grammars were entitled De Modis Significandi (whence the name ‘Modistae’), or, as we might put it to-day, ‘On Semantics’; they covered a great deal more ground than would now be included in ‘grammar’ narrowly considered. 1968J. Lyons Introd. Theoretical Linguistics i. 15 It was the task of scientific, or ‘speculative’, grammar to discover the principles whereby the word, as a ‘sign’, was related on the one hand to the human intellect and on the other to the thing it represented, or ‘signified’. 1972Hartmann & Stork Dict. Lang. & Linguistics 139/1 New in these universal speculative grammars [were]..the refinements in syntactic analysis, e.g. the function of prepositions, the formal criteria of grammatical acceptability, and the concepts of dependency, government and transitivity. 1975Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics XX. 134 Speculative grammar attempted to show how the ‘modes of existence’ of objects were apprehended by the ‘modes of understanding’ of the human intellect.
B. n.
†1. As a book-title, = mirror n. 4. Obs.
c1430Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 63 Vincencius in his speculatif historialle, Of this saide monk makithe ful mencyoune.
2.
†a. Speculation; hypothetical reasoning; theory. Obs.
After late L. speculātīva n. So. F. spéculative.
1412–20Lydg. Chron. Troy i. 3578 For-dullid is myn ymagynatif, To deme in practik or in speculatif. 1426― De Guil. Pilgr. 18575 For speculatyff..With-outen good experience Avaylith lytle or ellis nought. 1474Caxton Chesse iii. v. (1883) 119 The maistres of rethorique ben the chyef maistres in speculatyf. a1500in M. Cooke Hist. Masonry (1861) 90 Of specculatyfe he was a master and he lovyd well masonry and masons. 1509Barclay Shyp Folys (1570) 102 Such that haue practise and nought of speculatife.
†b. pl. Speculative matters; the speculative sciences. Obs.
1640Sedgwick Christ's Counsell 258 In speculatives be wise to sobriety, in practicals be as good as thou canst. a1670Rust Disc. Truth (1682) 166 As indispensible are the mutual respects and relations of things both in Speculatives and Morals. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. 416 Aristotle..concludes, that as the Speculative Sciences in General, are more Noble and Excellent than the other, so is Theology or Metaphysicks the most Honourable of all the Speculatives.
c. With the: That which rests only on speculation.
1877Sparrow Serm. xix. 254 When..we are compelled..to make a choice between the speculative and the practical we should give preference to the latter.
†3. A speculator or speculatist. Obs.—1
a1638Mede Wks. (1672) 878 If it were in Latine, it would make some of your German Speculatives half wild. |