Speculative article or quote rejected (9)
I believe the answer is:
theoretic
'speculative' is the definition.
('theoretic' can be similar in meaning to 'speculative')
'article or quote rejected' is the wordplay.
'article' becomes 'the' (the 'definite article' part of speech).
'quote' becomes 'cite' ('cite' can be a synonym of 'quote').
'rejected' is a reversal indicator.
'cite' written backwards gives 'etic'.
'the'+'or'+'etic'='THEORETIC'
(Other definitions for theoretic that I've seen before include "Not practical" , "impractical" , "purely speculative" .)