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To appropriate to one's own use the property of the public; to steal public moneys intrusted to one's care; to embezzle. An oppressive, . . . rapacious, and peculating despotism. Burke.

in its different aspects and relations; to meditate; to contemplate; to theorize; as, to speculate on questions in religion; to speculate on political events. It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most pefect quietude to the external regulations of society. Hawthorne.…

which only a conjectural answer can be made. Do you think life is long enough to let me speculate on conundrums like that W. Black.

Hence: To draw an illegitimate profit from; to speculate on; to put upon. [Recent] In no sense whatever does a man who accumulates a fortune by legitimate industry exploit his employés or make his capital "out of" anybody else. W. G. Sumner.

One who speculates or forms opinions independently of the authority of others; esp., in the sphere or religion, one who forms opinions independently of the authority of revelation or of the church; an unbeliever; -- a term assumed by deists and skeptics in the eighteenth century. Atheist is an old-fashioned word: I'm a…

A future tense. To deal in futures, to speculate on the future values of merchandise or stocks. [Brokers' cant]

A simple, unsophisticated person; in the cant of the Stock Exchange, one who ignorantly speculates and is victimized. Lamb of God, The Lamb (Script.), the Jesus Christ, in allusion to the paschal lamb. The twelve apostles of the Lamb. Rev. xxi. 14. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John i.…

One who peculates. "Peculators of the public gold." Cowper.

To speculate in physiology; to make physiological investigations. Cudworth.

To speculate after the manner of Pythagoras.

In a sanguine manner. I can not speculate quite so sanguinely as he does. Burke.

One who speculates, or forms theories; a speculator; a theorist. The very ingenious speculatist, Mr. Hume. V. Knox.

One who speculates. Specifically: (a) An observer; a contemplator; hence, a spy; a watcher. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

One who speculates in stocks for gain; one whose occupation is to buy and sell stocks. In England a jobber acts as an intermediary between brokers.

To frame a system of theology; to theorize or speculate upon theological subjects.

To form a theory or theories; to form opinions solely by theory; to speculate.

One who theorizes or speculates; a theorist.