a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence); "speculations about the outcome of the election"; "he dismissed it as mere conjecture"
an investment that is very risky but could yield great profits; "he knew the stock was a speculation when he bought it"
(law) an explanation of the fundamental reasons (especially an explanation of the working of some device in terms of laws of nature); "the rationale for capital punishment"; "the principles of internal-combustion engines"
the doctrine or belief that God is the universe and its phenomena (taken or conceived of as a whole) or the doctrine that regards the universe as a manifestation of God
a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices"
a proposal intended to explain certain facts or observations
the capacity to understand a broad range of topics; "a teacher must have a breadth of knowledge of the subject"; "a man distinguished by the largeness and scope of his views"
the act of rotating as if on an axis; "the rotation of the dancer kept time with the music"
a planned recurrent sequence (of crops or personnel etc.); "crop rotation makes a balanced demand on the fertility of the soil"; "the manager had only four starting pitchers in his rotation"
a single complete turn (axial or orbital); "the plane made three rotations before it crashed"; "the revolution of the earth about the sun takes one year"
(mathematics) a transformation in which the coordinate axes are rotated by a fixed angle about the origin