Guess

Part of speech: verb, noun

Pronunciation: /ɡɛs/

Definitions

1. To form an opinion or estimate about something without having definite knowledge or sufficient information
2. To make an approximation or assumption about something when lacking complete evidence or clear knowledge
3. To form a conclusion or judgment about something without certain proof

Etymology: The word "guess" is one of those English words whose ancestry runs through the Vikings. Its earliest English forms, Middle English "gessen" and "gesse", were probably borrowed from North Germanic speech, most likely from Old Danish "getse" and "gitse", meaning "to guess". The Old English word for guessing had been different, so the Norse-derived term gradually displaced the native vocabulary of conjecture. The deeper roots are more surprising. The Proto-Germanic ancestor, "gitisōną", was built on "getaną", meaning "to get", which itself traces to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to take, seize". So a guess was originally a kind of grasping at something, reaching for an answer you had not secured. The same core idea of seizing or obtaining survives in "get", and it is a striking reminder that the act of guessing began as a physical gesture of taking hold. Cognates across the Germanic languages show the same pattern: Danish "gisne", Swedish "gissa", Dutch "gissen", and Icelandic "giska" all mean "to guess". Even a distant relative in Russian, "gadat'", meaning "to conjecture or divine", points toward the same idea of reaching beyond what is known.

Synonyms: estimate, conjecture, surmise, speculate, infer

Antonyms: know, determine, ascertain