English Online Dictionary. What means guess? What does guess mean?
English
Etymology
From Middle English gessen (verb) and Middle English gesse (noun), probably of North Germanic origin, from Old Danish getse, gitse, getsa (“to guess”), from Old Norse *getsa, *gitsa, from Proto-Germanic *gitisōną (“to guess”), from Proto-Germanic *getaną (“to get”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰed- (“to take, seize”).
Cognate with Danish gisne (“to guess”), Norwegian gissa, gjette (“to guess”), Swedish gissa (“to guess”), Saterland Frisian gisje (“to guess”), Dutch gissen (“to guess”), Low German gissen (“to guess”), Dutch gis (“a guess”). Related also to Icelandic giska ("to guess"; from Proto-Germanic *gitiskōną). Compare also Russian гада́ть (gadátʹ, “to conjecture, guess, divine”), Albanian gjëzë (“riddle”) from gjej (“find, recover, obtain”). More at get.
Pronunciation
- enPR: gĕs, IPA(key): /ɡɛs/
- Rhymes: -ɛs
Verb
guess (third-person singular simple present guesses, present participle guessing, simple past and past participle guessed)
- To reach a partly (or totally) unconfirmed conclusion; to engage in conjecture; to speculate.
- To solve by a correct conjecture; to conjecture rightly.
- (chiefly US) to suppose, to imagine (introducing a proposition of uncertain plausibility).
- (colloquial) To think, conclude, or decide (without a connotation of uncertainty). Usually in first person: "I guess".
- (obsolete) To hit upon or reproduce by memory.
Conjugation
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
Noun
guess (plural guesses)
- A prediction about the outcome of something, typically made without factual evidence or support.
- Synonyms: estimate, hypothesis, prediction
Derived terms
Translations
Further reading
- “guess”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “guess”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
Anagrams
- Guses