verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
about
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This is not the place to speculate about possible alternatives.
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We speculated about what kind of a father would heap that kind of pressure on the shoulders of his son.
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I can speculate about how I know about reality, but no bracketing of current empirical certainties is required.
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To keep that focus, Finch has refused to speculate about what happened to Earhart.
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One can only speculate about how a genuinely independent and effective complaints authority would be received.
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We laughed about it awhile and speculated about what it would have been like.
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The rates are highest in the industrialized world, for reasons that we can only speculate about .
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Conspiracy buffs are having a field day speculating about White House motives.
as
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Maclean had no locus standi for this lightning intervention, and one can only speculate as to his reasons for it.
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We speculate as to what will happen to the characters in later years.
how
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However, we might pause to speculate how the above formulation of the Keynesian labour supply function came about.
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Of course, there have been many who have speculated how Martin Luther King would think were he alive today.
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I have sometimes whiled away idle moments in speculating how far one could elaborate this figure before the reader became suspicious.
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We might like to speculate how Jefferson or Tocqueville, Orwell or Bonhoeffer might respond to these extraordinary words.
on
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We can only speculate on whether this is another example of the pervasive influence of psychoanalytic thinking in our culture.
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Police would not speculate on a motive, except to say that Avanesian had a long-running dispute with his wife.
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I couldn't go on speculating on the might have-beens of Stavanger's life, for there was work to do.
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But he also speculated on much wider issues.
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The second question is easier to speculate on than the first.
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Encourage them to speculate on why some students heard the sound before others. 2.
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Love would not speculate on why the numbers have decreased.
only
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I was only speculating before.-but this is a serious possibility, yes?
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Again, I can only speculate .
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I can only speculate about the reasons for their success.
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You can only speculate at how Phoenix featherweight Louie Espinoza would have fared in the bout.
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We can only speculate on whether this is another example of the pervasive influence of psychoanalytic thinking in our culture.
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One can only speculate , and surely there's a more constructive way to spend one's time?
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Maclean had no locus standi for this lightning intervention, and one can only speculate as to his reasons for it.
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One can only speculate what magical chess we would have seen in matches with Karpov and Kasparov.
why
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We can only speculate why such a large number of young children experiences chronic constipation.
■ NOUN
analyst
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Wall Street analysts earlier this week speculated that Kodak would unload the unprofitable unit.
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Some analysts speculated that this factor could add around 75, 000 jobs to the seasonally adjusted figure the department reports tomorrow.
people
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This is likely if people start speculating that prices will rise further.
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Usually when you wonder what makes people tick you speculate about such things as their motives, attitudes and feelings.
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At another table, people were speculating about her.
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There is still much speculation as to what happened but at least nowadays people can speculate out loud.
possibility
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He packed his writing tray away whilst speculating on other possibilities .
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Mrs Saulitis, in spite of her love for the sergeant, had speculated about romantic possibilities with Captain Vilcins.
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Goldin has previously speculated about the possibility of interstellar flight using extremely small, low-mass probes.
reason
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I can only speculate about the reasons for their success.
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He had speculated , with good reason , on the rapid rise of the shares.
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Maclean had no locus standi for this lightning intervention, and one can only speculate as to his reasons for it.
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They further speculate about the reasons for which the soul entered the body and its relationship to the universe.
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The group fragmented and re-formed in twos and threes, speculating on possible reasons for Gebrec's disappearance.
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Many of us speculated as to his reasons .
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It is interesting to speculate on the possible reasons for his total obscurity during the intervening years of the Restoration.
■ VERB
begin
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It was the Princesse's evident flush which made Katherine begin to speculate .
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On page seventy, Lal had begun to speculate on organisms possibly capable of adapting themselves in ex-posed lunar conditions.
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Left alone, we began to speculate about where we were and why, and where we would ultimately be taken.
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As the fumes cleared from his brain he began to speculate seriously as to how the iconograph worked.
decline
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Nellis and Weir declined to speculate about military applications.
lead
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Its extreme isolation has led some researchers to speculate that it contains life forms unknown to science.
refuse
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Horton refused to speculate , and so his dancers were forced to follow their own hunches in interpreting the characters.
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To keep that focus, Finch has refused to speculate about what happened to Earhart.
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Keyes refused to speculate on either the provocations or the order of the deaths.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Edward began to speculate on what life would be like if he were single again.
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Her father made his money speculating on the New York Stock Exchange.
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People have been speculating about interstellar flight for years.
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Terry speculated heavily in mining shares and lost a lot of money.
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We don't know why the prehistoric stone circles were built. We can only speculate .
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Builders and developers themselves may also speculate in land in this way.
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Edouard, who had had plenty of time to speculate , was still surprised by her arrival.
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He speculated that the people down south in San Diego just don't know who Bob Farner is.
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Party insiders had speculated about competition between Symington and Woods to lead the delegation.
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Wall Street had speculated earlier this week that Kodak would unload the unprofitable unit.