Estimating

How to spell estimating

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce estimating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does estimating mean?

1. verbForming an approximate calculation or judgement of a value, size, quantity, or cost.

Estimating in a sentence

• The contractor spent the morning estimating the cost of the kitchen renovation.

• When estimating travel time, she always adds an extra hour for traffic.

Where does estimating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb aestimare, which meant 'to value, to appraise, or to set a price on'. From its past participle stem aestimatus English built the verb 'estimate' in the sixteenth century, and 'estimating' is simply its present participle. The original Latin sense was strongly financial, concerned with assigning worth to property or goods, and that flavour survives whenever a builder or surveyor is calculating a likely cost. The same aestimare root also gave English 'esteem', because holding a person in high esteem is literally valuing them highly. The spelling keeps the single 's' and single 't' of the Latin stem, and the unstressed middle vowel, written 'i', is the quiet trap, since the syllable sounds like a weak 'uh' rather than a clear 'i'.

How the word is built

• estim- (from Latin aestimare: to value, appraise)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ing (present participle suffix)