guess
part of speech
verb (guess, guesses, guessed, guessing); noun (guess, guesses)
meaning for a pupil
1) To guess means to give an answer when you are not sure, without knowing all the facts. A guess is that answer. tree →
2) To guess right is to find the right answer by guessing. tree →
3) «I guess» in everyday talk means «I think» or «I suppose». tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: an estimate that is later checked; «guess and check» (trial and improvement) is a way to solve a problem; how far off a guess was = difference. In science: a hypothesis is a careful guess that is tested. In games: guess the word, guess who. Phrases: guess and check, make a guess, a good guess, a wild guess, guess what, take a guess.
examples
- Guess how many beans are in the jar. tree →
- Her guess was 50, but there were 62. tree →
- How far off was his guess? tree →
- Use guess and check to find the two numbers. tree →
- Can you guess what is in the box? tree →
- Guess what? We are getting a puppy! tree →
- My guess is that it will rain later. tree →
- He guessed the answer right. tree →
- That was just a wild guess. tree →
- Then she guessed what had happened. tree →
note
The u is silent: say «gess». Plural «guesses». An estimate is a sensible guess based on what you know. A guess is compared with the real number: difference = bigger − smaller. Trap: «off by» does not care which is bigger.
In the corpora
- What has been blown up or guessed?
- An ambulance outside a house tells you someone needed help, not who or why; offer help, not guesses.
- Stories grow because people fill gaps with guesses, round numbers up, and add a twist that makes the tale better to tell.
- One clue plus a guess plus another guess feels like news, but it is not.
- Repeat a guess enough times and it sticks to a person like a label.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «guess» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.