speculatistn.

1613 T. Milles tr. P. Mexia et al. Treasurie Auncient & Moderne Times 12/2 The Septuagint..haue commonly traduced it to be in Eden... Other speculatis [t] es do affirme it to be in Syria.

1621 T. Granger Familiar Expos. Eccles. 24 Let the profoundest speculatist, or curious practitioner, turne the edge of his wit which way he will to finde out some new thing.

1715 tr. Thomas à Kempis Christian's Exercise i. x. 15 Either a lofty Speculatist, or a subtil Disputant.

1750 S. Johnson Rambler No. 14. ⁋5 The speculatist is only in danger of erroneous reasoning, but the man involved in life has his own passions, and those of others, to encounter.

1780 W. Cowper Progress of Error 490 Fresh confidence the speculatist takes From ev'ry hair-brain'd proselyte he makes.

1807 Edinb. Rev. 10 369 We shall..lay before our readers the opinions of this clever speculatist.

1849 Darwin in Life & Lett. (1887) II. 37 This confounded variation..is pleasant to me as a speculatist, though odious to me as a systematist.

1886 A. Weir Hist. Basis Mod. Europe (1889) 20 The social principles recommended by speculatists.

1693 W. Freke Sel. Ess. xxxiv. 223 'Tis the Curse of dreaming Speculatists, that they not only have no taste of real Wisdom, but mispend the time that should lead them to it.

1766 E. Carter Let. 1 July in Series of Lett. E. Carter & C. Talbot (1808) II. 138 The most visionary speculatist must sometimes awake to the cares and solicitudes of real life.

1792 W. Roberts Looker-on No. 26. 203 An Utopian speculatist might amuse himself with planning a department..which should be called the office of advice.

1827 G. S. Faber Origin Expiat. Sacrifice 262 The notion of its divine institution originated..with some fantastical innovating speculatists among the modern Puritans.

1850 J. McCosh Method Divine Govt. (ed. 2) ii. ii. 217 He is probably an idle dreamer,..or a wild speculatist.

1893 Church Times 20 Oct. 1062 The vapid and airy region of third-rate speculatists.

1730 (title) The Speculatist. A Collection of Letters and Essays, Moral and Political, Serious and Humourous, upon Various Subjects.

1787 J. Hawkins Life Johnson 538 Concanen, one of the Dunciad heroes, in a paper called ‘The Speculatist’.]

1802 T. Beddoes Hygëia II. viii. 92 The hypothesis of any medical speculatist.

1818 T. Busby Gram. Music 167 Among those who succeeded Rameau, as musical speculatists, was the celebrated Tartini.

1837–8 Sir W. Hamilton in Reid's Wks. I. 53/2 Some of the recent physiological speculatists of Germany.

1850 W. E. Gladstone Remarks Royal Supremacy 37 In the other case we may as political speculatists either rank with those who nakedly hold the popular sovereignty, or with those who choose a firmer and safer ground in the traditions of English history.