estimate
Americanverb (used with object)
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estimates,
present (3rd person singular)
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estimated,
past participle, past
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estimating
present participle
verb (used without object)
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estimates,
present (3rd person singular)
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estimated,
past participle, past
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estimating
present participle
noun
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estimates
plural
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an approximate judgment or calculation, as of the value, amount, time, size, or weight of something.
- Synonyms:
- appraisal, calculation, valuation
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a judgment or opinion, as of the qualities of a person or thing.
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a statement of the approximate charge for work to be done, submitted by a person or business firm ready to undertake the work.
verb
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to form an approximate idea of (distance, size, cost, etc); calculate roughly; gauge
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(tr; may take a clause as object) to form an opinion about; judge
to estimate one's chances
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to submit (an approximate price) for (a job) to a prospective client
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(tr) statistics to assign a value (a point estimate ) or range of values (an interval estimate ) to a parameter of a population on the basis of sampling statistics See estimator
noun
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an approximate calculation
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a statement indicating the likely charge for or cost of certain work
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a judgment; appraisal; opinion
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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estimatornoun
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preestimatenoun
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reestimatenoun
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self-estimatenoun
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preestimateverb (used with object)
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reestimateverb (used with object)
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estimativeadjective
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unestimatedadjective
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well-estimatedadjective
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estimatinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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estimatesimple
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estimatessimple
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have estimatedperfect
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has estimatedperfect
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am estimatingprogressive
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are estimatingprogressive
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is estimatingprogressive
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have been estimatingperfect progressive
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has been estimatingperfect progressive
Past
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estimatedsimple
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had estimatedperfect
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was estimatingprogressive
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were estimatingprogressive
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had been estimatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of estimate
First recorded in 1525–35; from Latin aestimātus “valued,” past participle of aestimāre “to value, fix the value of”
Explanation
A rough calculation or appraisal is an estimate. When you hit another baseball through the kitchen window, your parents will get an estimate of the repair costs. And you should estimate being grounded for approximately 3 weeks. An estimate is kind of like a very educated guess. Making an estimate takes good evaluation skills, and usually estimates are pretty close to the actual outcome. If the garage bill is way higher than the estimate they gave you, for example, you have a right to be angry. But if you forgot to factor in rush hour traffic when you estimated the drive from Boston to New York, that's your own fault.
Vocabulary lists containing estimate
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Arithmetic
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Tax Day Words
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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.
See Examples For:
Economists estimate higher prices for computer-related equipment could add one- to two-tenths to the rate of annual inflation.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026
Nomura slashes its 2026 net-profit estimate for the company by 48% to 4.871 trillion won.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Answering those questions could help researchers estimate how large Neptune's original moons were and better understand the dramatic sequence of events that transformed the planet's satellite system into the one visible today.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026
We know that over the past half-century, more than 200 people have been exonerated after having been sentenced to die, and scholars estimate that 4 percent of those sentenced to death are innocent.
From Slate ● Aug. 13, 2026
So when it comes to chest pain, doctors gather as much information as they can, and then they make an estimate.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
The UN estimates that about 1.9 million people - 90% of Gaza's population - have been displaced since the war started.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
Recent estimates indicate that nearly 40% of Alzheimer's cases may be connected to such factors.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
The government has declared an "economic emergency" but has not yet published estimates of how much rebuilding the quake zone will cost.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
He anticipates cutting his earnings estimates after meeting China Aviation’s management on Tuesday, and is reviewing the stock’s buy rating and target price of 2.50 Singapore dollars.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
However, these estimates are for human beings reduced to our simplest possible components.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
More than 500,000 people in the Netherlands are estimated to have the condition, and that number is expected to increase in the years ahead.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
Between 2017 and last year, China’s imports of Iranian oil are estimated to have more than doubled to roughly 1.4 million barrels a day, according to Kpler, a commodity research firm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
An AFP reporter estimated that around 20-30 people in uniforms were there.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
Analytics FC estimated in a 2022 report, external with immigration specialists Fragomen that about 60,000 professional players in Europe had potentially been available to British clubs before Brexit.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
An estimated 40,000 Spiritualist believers resided in that metropolis already, but with a growing population of half a million people, there was plenty of opportunity to grow the spirit cause as well.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
The team also used generalized estimating equation models to examine how cardiovascular factors were related to changes in cognition.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
High-net-worth individuals have even higher expectations, estimating they will need $2.67 million to retire comfortably.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026
The staggering $1.4 trillion in alleged damages comes from estimating the number of affected users in the four states.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
Company officials said they remain “committed to the fastest remediation possible,” estimating that the cleanup was about 80% complete.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
I wasn’t sure how many there had been, and I thought that Gearhart was only estimating.
From "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers
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.
