# estimate

Pronunciation: say "ES-ti-muht" /ˈɛs.tɪ.mət/

## Verb

Pronunciation: say "ES-ti-mayt" /ˈɛs.tɪˌmeɪt/

1. To calculate something roughly, often working from incomplete or imperfect data.
   - Simple: To make a rough guess about an amount, size, or cost.
   - _Forecasters estimate rainfall from limited weather station data._
   - _Engineers estimated the bridge's load capacity using rough field measurements._
4. To judge the value or worth of someone or something, forming an opinion from imperfect information.
   - Simple: To form an opinion about how good or valuable someone or something is, without having all the facts.
   - _Because so many of his letters were lost, historians still estimate the old general's importance in very different ways._
   - _Early reviewers badly estimated the album's importance, and only years later did critics see how much it had changed the music around it._

## Noun

2. An approximate judgment or calculation of how much something is worth, how large it is, or what it will cost.
   - Simple: A rough guess of how big something is, what it costs, or what it is worth.
   - _By one police estimate, the crowd at the parade topped fifty thousand._
   - _Early estimates of the storm damage proved far too low._
3. A document or spoken statement setting out how much a job is likely to cost.
   - Simple: A written or spoken note telling you how much a job should cost.
   - _The garage emailed an estimate for the brake repair before scheduling it._
   - _Several estimates for the roof work arrived within the week._

## Adjective

5. Arrived at by estimation; calculated approximately rather than measured exactly. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Figured out as a rough guess rather than counted exactly.

## Other meanings

- (noun) An upper limit placed on the size of some positive quantity.

## Origin

**Meanings 2–3** — From Middle English estimat, borrowed from Latin aestimātus ('valuing, estimate'), from the verb aestimō plus a suffix that forms action nouns.
**Meanings 1, 4** — Borrowed from Latin aestimātus, the perfect passive participle of aestimō ('to estimate'), older form aestumō ('to value, rate, esteem'); this perhaps comes from Old Latin *ais-temos ('one who cuts copper'), meaning one who minted money in the Roman Republic. It is a doublet of esteem and related to aim.
**Meaning 5** — Latin aestimātus ('estimated') is the source; the word first served as the past participle of estimate, the same pattern seen in generate and communicate.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/estimate (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).