Guesses

How to spell guesses

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce guesses

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does guesses mean?

1. nounEstimates or opinions formed without full information; the plural of guess.
2. verbForms an estimate or opinion without certain knowledge; the third-person singular of guess.

Guesses in a sentence

• noun

  Her early guesses about the budget turned out to be close to the real figure.

• verb

  Whenever he guesses the answer, he writes it down before checking.

• noun

  The quiz rewarded careful answers rather than wild guesses.

• verb

  She rarely guesses at a price without studying the market first.

Where does guesses come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The base word guess comes from Middle English gessen, meaning to estimate or to form an opinion, and it almost certainly arrived from a Scandinavian source: compare Old Norse geta, which meant both 'to get' and 'to guess', and the related Middle Dutch and Middle Low German gissen. The underlying idea links 'getting hold of' something mentally with 'arriving at' a likely answer, so an early guess was a reckoning reached without certain proof. The word settled into English in the 1300s and kept its sense of an opinion offered when firm evidence is lacking. The plural and third-person form simply adds -es because the word ends in the hissing -ss sound, and that doubled s before the suffix is the small spelling point worth remembering. The everyday relative 'guesswork' preserves the same root and the same approximate, unproven flavour.

How the word is built

• guess (estimate without full knowledge)
• -es (plural noun / third-person singular verb suffix)