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guesswork

American  
[ges-wurk] / ˈgɛsˌwɜrk /

noun

  1. work or procedure based on or consisting of the making of guesses or conjectures.

guesswork British  
/ ˈɡɛsˌwɜːk /

noun

  1. a set of conclusions, estimates, etc, arrived at by guessing

  2. the process of making guesses

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of guesswork

First recorded in 1715–25; guess + work

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"After 160 years of getting it wrong, this paper corrects this very important feature based not on guesswork, but on empirical evidence."

From Science Daily • Apr. 24, 2026

Intelligence analysts don’t have to rely so much on guesswork.

From Slate • Feb. 3, 2026

“Based on personal experience,” he wrote, “I feel that this little indicator would remove the guesswork of which side I want to park.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 3, 2026

The one great thing about death is that it takes the guesswork out of all of this, or at least it’s supposed to.

From Salon • Nov. 27, 2025

Likewise, even though we know that in early seventh-century China ‘orchestras’ of instruments played together, what they played is guesswork.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.