Guessable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Capable of being worked out or correctly identified by making an informed estimate without certain knowledge
2. Describing something that others can predict or deduce with a reasonable chance of being right
3. Easy enough to be figured out through a guess, as with a password, answer, or outcome

Etymology: "Guessable" is a plain English formation: the verb "guess" with the suffix "-able," which means "capable of being" or "able to be" whatever the base describes. So a guessable answer is one that can be guessed. The suffix itself has a long pedigree. It passed into English through Old French from Latin "-ābilis," and the Latin form descends from older Italic and Indo-European elements built around the idea of capacity or fitness. The more interesting part is the suffix's journey rather than the word itself. English has used "-able" productively for centuries, attaching it freely to native verbs like "guess," "read," and "wash," which is why "guessable" needed no special coinage. The history of the ending is therefore longer and more tangled than the word built from it.

Synonyms: predictable, inferable

Antonyms: unguessable