Other forms: speculators
A speculator is somebody who buys and sells hoping prices will move. A currency speculator, property speculators, blamed the speculators.
It is always the other person's word, since nobody calls themselves one, and blaming speculators is the oldest reflex in any market crisis. The Latin means a watchman on a tower.
1nounspeculatorSomebody who buys and sells hoping prices will move.
“Speculators rushed to buy land near the planned new airport.”
speculator is a trader.
Latin speculator means a watchman or scout, from specula, a watchtower.
Latin
speculātor — spy, explorer, investigator
English, today
speculator
Built from
From Latin speculātor (“spy, explorer, investigator”), from speculor + -tor, from specula (“watchtower”), from speciō (“to watch, to observe”), q.v. In some senses, an agent noun formed within English from speculate. a doublet of spectator.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA