guess
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To reach a partly unconfirmed conclusion.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
gehsIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɛs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To reach a partly (or totally) unconfirmed conclusion; to engage in conjecture; to speculate.
colloquial
To think, conclude, or decide (without a connotation of uncertainty). Usually in first person: "I guess".
chiefly us
To suppose, to imagine (introducing a proposition of uncertain plausibility).
To solve by a correct conjecture; to conjecture rightly.
Expect, believe, or suppose
noun
A prediction about the outcome of something, typically made without factual evidence or support.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To reach a partly (or totally) unconfirmed conclusion; to engage in conjecture; to speculate.
Used this way, guess is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- reckon , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use guess
- “I am guessing that the price of real estate will rise again.”verb
- “He guessed the right number of beans in the jar and won the prize.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
An estimate based on little or no information.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A game in which participants compete to identify some obscurely indicated thing.
Attempt to anticipate or predict.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.