What's the difference between pontificate and speculate?

Pontificate


Definition:

  • (n.) The state or dignity of a high priest; specifically, the office of the pope.
  • (n.) The term of office of a pontiff.
  • (v. i.) To perform the duty of a pontiff.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Highlighting an excerpt of the interview, which Harri claimed was "implying the mayor is 'losing his touch' because he 'failed' to upstage the PM", he criticised the decision to allow Purnell to "pontificate without challenge, qualification or allowing us a right to reply" and described the author as someone who "knows no one in No 10".
  • (2) RDE: I wouldn't expect the head of Oxfam to subsist on gruel, but I'd like charity workers to see their jobs as vocations rather than a well-paid career providing both generous financial rewards and the opportunity to pontificate from the moral high ground.
  • (3) The group’s trip to Rome is designed to coincide with a workshop hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Tuesday called Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity, which will feature speeches by Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs.
  • (4) If she genuinely can't understand that, there is little point her pontificating on any of the minutiae of the free market system nor the political or economic world at large.
  • (5) But in a setback, the US embassy found that its closest ally on GM, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the powerful Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the man who mostly represents the pope at the United Nations, had withdrawn his support for the US.
  • (6) The way western politicians and media have pontificated about Israel's onslaught on Gaza, you'd think it was facing an unprovoked attack from a well-armed foreign power.
  • (7) Emilio Sáenz-Francés, professor of history and international relations at Madrid’s Comillas Pontifical University, says Spain will suffer internally and externally as long as the political paralysis endures.
  • (8) Prime among these is Katie Hopkins, a former Apprentice contestant who now writes a column for the Sun and pontificates on daytime TV, appearing on the This Morning sofa as regularly as an untreated cold sore.
  • (9) In one of the longest, most passionate and sweeping speeches of his pontificate, the Argentine-born pope used his visit to Bolivia to ask forgiveness for the sins committed by the Roman Catholic church in its treatment of native Americans during what he called the “so-called conquest of America”.
  • (10) Emilio Sáenz-Francés, a professor of history and international relations at Madrid’s Comillas Pontifical University, said that while the central government may have succeeded in watering down Sunday’s vote, it had done little to address the underlying grassroots movement pushing for independence.
  • (11) The meeting was arranged by the Argentine head of the pontifical academy, Monsignor Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, a good friend of the pope’s.
  • (12) I’m here to talk about trade not to pontificate on other issues.
  • (13) But she says now that she'd been doing interviews all day, "then somehow, I started liking the sound of my own voice pontificating.
  • (14) But Guzmán Carriquiry, vice president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and a friend of the pope’s, suggested at a recent conference in Philadelphia that the pope would try to present a more nuanced understanding of the US, including in his discussion of economics.
  • (15) But she thought it might also indicate that the Vatican "may ... be pulling back due to concerns about ITF pressure to declassify records from the WWII-era pontificate of Pope Pius XII".
  • (16) The 77-year-old former archbishop of Buenos Aires will be the fifth pope to meet the Queen, who first visited the Vatican as Princess Elizabeth during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.
  • (17) Any commentator who speaks of “Ireland” (26 counties thereof) gaining “independence” (sic) whole ignoring the fact that almost one million of its citizens are now trapped in a gerrymandered United Kingdom statelet in which they want no part of, nor ever wanted, shouldn’t be pontificating on Scottish independence .
  • (18) Fourteen-year-olds pontificating on this must be making the old field marshal turn in his grave, and this debate also perpetuates the myth that British soldiers were "lions led by donkeys", the idea that the brave ordinary Tommy was let down by the brandy-soaked toffs in charge.
  • (19) The big bang, which is today posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creation; rather, it requires it,” the pope said in an address to a meeting at the pontifical academy of sciences.
  • (20) The crowd of excitable young and young-ish people gathered to hear him pontificate believe what he’s saying, even if he doesn’t.

Speculate


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To consider by turning a subject in the mind, and viewing it in its different aspects and relations; to meditate; to contemplate; to theorize; as, to speculate on questions in religion; to speculate on political events.
  • (v. i.) To view subjects from certain premises given or assumed, and infer conclusions respecting them a priori.
  • (v. i.) To purchase with the expectation of a contingent advance in value, and a consequent sale at a profit; -- often, in a somewhat depreciative sense, of unsound or hazardous transactions; as, to speculate in coffee, in sugar, or in bank stock.
  • (v. t.) To consider attentively; as, to speculate the nature of a thing.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It did the job of triggering growth, but it also fueled real-estate speculation, similar to what was going on in the mid-2000s here.” Slowing economic growth may be another concern.
  • (2) It has been speculated that these cigarette smoke-induced alterations contribute to the depressed pulmonary defense mechanisms commonly demonstrated in smokers.
  • (3) We speculate that this cleavage event is catalyzed by either a cryptic potyviral proteinase that requires a host factor or subcellular environment for activation, or possibly a host proteinase.
  • (4) 9.23pm GMT Expect the reporters to get even more speculative and desperate from hereon in.
  • (5) So it was speculated that the enhancement of pulmonary metastasis needs remaining of irradiated tumor in bodies of mice for a certain period.
  • (6) We speculate that intestinal injury may also induce or perpetuate arthritis by systemic distribution of inflammatory mediators produced by intestinal immune effector cells.
  • (7) We speculate that the preferential rupture of the H2B-H4 contact is of physiological significance.
  • (8) Such an explanation not only remains vague and speculative but deserves criticism also for being incomplete.
  • (9) One may speculate whether clinical conditions exist--apart from hereditary retinal dystrophies--in which the retina becomes more sensitive to light from strong artificial or natural sources, which are otherwise innoxious.
  • (10) The literature concerning the possible effects of tetracyclines on hemostasis with or without antecedent anticoagulation therapy is reviewed and the speculated mechanisms for such an interaction are discussed.
  • (11) Cable, once a leading critic of City speculation, insists the shares will go to responsible investors.
  • (12) "Getting a 95% loan to value mortgage lets you speculate on the expected house price increases a lot more than a 75% mortgage," he said.
  • (13) Thus one may speculate that endothelin plays a role in the coronary spasm which has been shown in patients with angina pectoris.
  • (14) Gerson Zweifach, general counsel for both News Corp and 21st Century Fox , Murdoch’s film and TV business, said: “We are grateful that this matter has been concluded and acknowledge the fairness and professionalism of the Department of Justice throughout this investigation.” It is understood there has been no background settlement with the Department of Justice in order to avoid a full-blown investigation, contrary to speculation in New York over a year ago that the company was looking at a possible payment of over $850m.
  • (15) Dealers speculated that Facebook's army of bankers had stepped in to stop the shares falling below $38, a move that would have landed the social network with a public relations disaster on its first day as a public company.
  • (16) If we were to have a plebiscite before the end of the year, and you were to reverse-engineer that, it would make interesting speculation about the timing of an election.” Abetz said in January he would need to see whether a plebiscite was “above board or whether the question is stacked” before deciding to heed any result in favour of marriage equality.
  • (17) Undoubtedly because new theories remain speculative when viewed from our own standpoint.
  • (18) Lack of transparency about the nature of the relationship between police and media also led to speculation and perceptions, whatever the facts, that caused "serious harm".
  • (19) The similarity of the low-K breathing pattern to that observed with reserpine administration together with the known relationships of K and catecholamine metabolism lead to the speculation that K depletion alters breathing via an effect on central catecholamine metabolism.
  • (20) Last week, Park offered a public apology after acknowledging Choi had edited some of her speeches and provided help with public relations, but South Korea’s media have speculated Choi played a much larger, secret role in government affairs.