| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | speculative |
| Synonyms: | academic, assumed, doubtful, figured, guessing, guesstimated, hypothetical, on a hunch, on a long shot, putative, reputed, supposed, suppositional, suppositious, suppositive, surmised, surmising, suspect, tentative, theoretical, uncertain, unresolved |
| Antonyms: | certain, factual, proven, real, truthful |
| Main Entry: | circumstantial |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | incidental |
| Synonyms: | amplified, coincidental, concomitant, concurrent, conjectural, contingent, detailed, environmental, fortuitous, inconclusive, indirect, inferential, presumptive, provisional, uncertain |
| Antonyms: | direct |
| Main Entry: | hypothetical |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | guessed, assumed |
| Synonyms: | academic, assumptive, casual, concocted, conditional, conjecturable, conjectural, contestable, contingent, debatable, disputable, doubtful, equivocal, imaginary, imagined, indefinite, indeterminate, postulated, presumptive, presupposed, pretending, problematic, provisory, putative, questionable, refutable, speculative, stochastic, supposed, suppositional, suppositious, suspect, theoretic, theoretical, uncertain, unconfirmed, vague |
| Antonyms: | calculated, confirmed, factual, measured, proved, proven, real, reliable, truthful |
| Main Entry: | putative |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | commonly believed |
| Synonyms: | accepted, alleged, assumed, conjectural, hypothetical, imputed, presumed, presumptive, reported, reputed, supposed, suppositional, suppositious |
| Antonyms: | proven, real, true |
| Main Entry: | reputed |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | believed |
| Synonyms: | accounted, alleged, assumed, conjectural, considered, deemed, estimated, gossiped, held, hypothetical, ostensible, putative, reckoned, regarded, reported, rumored, said, seeming, supposed, suppositional, suppositious, supposititious, suppositive, suppository, thought |
| Antonyms: | actual, real, true |
| Main Entry: | tentative |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | conditional, experimental |
| Synonyms: | acting, ad interim, conjectural, contingent, dependent, iffy, indefinite, makeshift, not final, not settled, on trial, open for consideration, probationary, provisional, provisionary, provisory, speculative, subject to change, temporary, test, trial, unconfirmed, undecided, unsettled |
| Antonyms: | certain, decisive, definite, final, sure |
| Main Entry: | theoretical |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | hypothetical |
| Synonyms: | abstract, academic, analytical, as a premise, assumed, codified, conjectural, contingent, formalistic, formularized, general, ideal, idealized, ideational, ideological, imaginative, impractical, in the abstract, in theory, instanced, intellectual, logical, metaphysical, notional, on paper, pedantic, philosophical, postulated, presumed, problematical, pure, quixotic, speculative, suppositional, tentative, transcendent, transcendental, unearthly, unproved, unsubstantiated, vague |
| Notes: | empirical describes results determined by experiment and observed behavior or facts; theoretical describes results that are based on guesswork or hypothesis - and pragmatic is contrasted with theoretical on the grounds that the former proceeds from what is demonstrably practical, the latter from conjecture |
| Antonyms: | certain, definite, factual, proven, real |
| Main Entry: | uncertain |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | doubtful, changeable |
| Synonyms: | ambiguous, ambivalent, chancy, conjectural, dubious, erratic, fitful, hanging by a thread, hazy, hesitant, iffy, incalculable, inconstant, indefinite, indeterminate, indistinct, insecure, irregular, irresolute, on thin ice, precarious, questionable, risky, speculative, touch and go, unclear, unconfirmed, undecided, undetermined, unfixed, unforeseeable, unpredictable, unreliable, unresolved, unsettled, unsure, up for grabs, up in the air, vacillating, vague, variable, wavering |
| Antonyms: | certain, clear, definite, determined, foreseeable, secure, sure, unchanging |
| Main Entry: | supposed |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | presumed |
| Synonyms: | alleged, assumed, conjectural, hypothetical, putative, reputed, supposititious, theoretical |