Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Informal An estimate based on conjecture.
Wiktionary
- n. informal An estimate that is hardly any better than a guess, often because it is based on insufficient or unreliable data.
- v. intransitive To make a guesstimate.
- v. transitive To make a guesstimate of a specific quantity.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. an estimate based on little information, being little better than a guess.
WordNet 3.0
- v. estimate based on a calculation
- n. an estimate that combines reasoning with guessing
Etymologies
- Blend of guess and estimate (Wiktionary)
- Blend of guess and estimate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“My guesstimate is that they have not and in fact, have a higher standard of living than their "counterparts" (isn't that term entirely relative and even artificial?) 10, 20 and 30 years ago did.”
Poverty and Income Distribution, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“My guesstimate is that half of the officially unemployed have been out of work for over a year.”
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » The Cost of our New Corporate State
“My best guesstimate is that Kasten wasn’t brought here to build the Washington Braves.”
The Washington Post: Kast away - Nats president throws it back
“Ivan Arbuthnot, who is on secondment to the NAHT from his role as principal of Priory Integrated College in Holywood, said: "We have been told that we should soon get indicative budgets - a 'guesstimate' - which will put funding at the same as last year.”
“I'm not even going to try to "guesstimate" how many words I've written on LJ over the past six years.”
“John Curry, spokesman for BP, said the 5,000-barrel-a-day figure was just a "guesstimate" as "it's very difficult to accurately gauge how much there is.”
“To put this kind of guesstimate story out there is a disservice to your readers and as it will no doubt be referenced further down the line, should be an embarrassment to Harvard University.”
Print is still king: Only 3 percent of newspaper reading happens online » Nieman Journalism Lab
“The HRW survey concludes that as many as 600 civilians died and several thousand were injured in the 90 strikes, a toll lower than a Pentagon "guesstimate" of 1,500 civilian deaths.”
“Because of UBS's caginess in disclosing full losses thus far, Stalmann says his 'guesstimate' is up to $40 billion in exposure not yet publicly known.”
“I'm guessing at that number but, judging from the square miles of parked buses and autos in the highways and fields and vacant lots around the outskirts, plus the crowds in the streets of the little town, I'm probably not far off in my 'guesstimate'.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘guesstimate’.
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Fruits of Linguistic Invention
bananosecond, fruitylicious, appled, kiwiclock, boomorange, damsonic, pearforate, graspberry, squince, datelier, caroberate, plumpire and 143 more...
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EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1076 more...
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Portmanteaux
Words formed by joining two others and combining their meanings.
neurogami, sexting, churnalism, palabrarium, douchoisie, rhinocerwurst, handwavium, sharrow, malamanteau, frenemy, netiquette, brunch and 10 more...
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portmanteaus
slithy, chortle, mimsy, galumph, maffluent, smog, motel, momentaneous, splisters, swifting, editated, splatter and 73 more...
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EN - rare verbs
fornicate, enfranchise, tweet, natter, fetter, devil, cork, bunker, canoe, backstroke, carom, queer and 52 more...
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Dumbisms
Words and phrases I don't like. They are dumb.
re-look, good to go, reinvent the wheel, do what, ducks in a row, re-up, twofer, irregardless, repurpose, ballyhoo, bells and whistles, webinar and 55 more...
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vinyl's Words
deliverator, finna, metric fuckton, fag, hyphy, ginormous, sacrilicious, fantabulous, macaca, n-word, pterodactyl, genious and 560 more...
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Ugliest Words Ever
words that I refuse to say out loud.
tuna, uranus, bulbous, vaginal, rectum, cunnilingus, flatulance, pedagogy, blooper, booger, beefy, polyp and 116 more...
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neologish
neologisms, etc.
pop culture that has invaded my brain.ishtar, d'oh, jump the shark, truthiness, ginormous, muggle, craptacular, spam, cyberspace, email, excellent, boo yah and 20 more...
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dislikes
milieu, empowerment, facilitator, guesstimate, awesome, issues, genre, gig, dinkum, proactive, whilst, bitching and 5 more...
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Portmanteaus
Words created by combining 2 (or sometimes more)
smog, spork, brunch, camcorder, chortle, cremains, cyborg, fantabulous, ginormous, frenemy, ebonics, gerrymander and 34 more...
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amusements
why aren't you more manly
blamethrower, pretent, hob, persnickety, extemporanea, checkouted, sexy stuffs, tharm, cankle, asshat, guesstimate, truthiness and 11 more...
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Why Can't People Pronounce These Prop...
Words that make me crazy when people say or spell them wrong. You don't know what it took out of me to type them this way.
See another (kinder, gentler) list "Unexpected Pronunciation"...supposably, irregardless, utilize, warsh, nucular, expresso, guesstimate, inneresting, aks, for all intensive..., heighth, excetera and 45 more...
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dumb neologisms
webinar, blog, staycation, prosumer, blogosphere, podcast, phishing, pharming, incentivize, ballinest, beaulicious, bennifer and 53 more...
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horrible words
words I hate
factual, guesstimate, taut, impact, utilize, lingerie, existential, quirky, wacky, milieu
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Ew!
Words I simply cannot stand.
catastrophe, chlamydia, phlegm, guesstimate, yellow, arugula, niels bohr
Tweets
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