GUESSING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does guessing mean? 

• GUESSING (noun)
  The noun GUESSING has 1 sense:

1. an estimate based on little or no information

  Familiarity information: GUESSING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GUESSING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An estimate based on little or no information

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

dead reckoning; guess; guessing; guesswork; shot

Hypernyms ("guessing" is a kind of...):

approximation; estimate; estimation; idea (an approximate calculation of quantity or degree or worth)

Derivation:

guess (put forward, of a guess, in spite of possible refutation)

 Context examples 

He would always come back to his lost treaty, wondering, guessing, speculating, as to what Holmes was doing, what steps Lord Holdhurst was taking, what news we should have in the morning.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"A pair of boot lacings," returned Jo, guessing and defeating his purpose.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

This was a device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of guessing.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He, too, had seen it—the Macedonia, guessing his manœuvre and failing by a moment in anticipating it.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He soon perceived that I disliked the subject; but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my feelings to modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement, to the science itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Edward saw enough to comprehend, not only the meaning of others, but such of Marianne's expressions as had puzzled him before; and when their visitors left them, he went immediately round her, and said, in a whisper, I have been guessing.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, the happiest power of jumping and guessing, he could always alight at will on the best scene, or the best speeches of each; and whether it were dignity, or pride, or tenderness, or remorse, or whatever were to be expressed, he could do it with equal beauty.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

But there may be pretty good guessing.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I do not pretend to Emma's genius for foretelling and guessing.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)