Wild guess
Meaning
An estimate or answer made without any real knowledge, information, or reasoning, often with little expectation of being correct.
Origin
The phrase "wild guess" draws its expressive power from the striking contrast and combination of its two simple words. "Wild," with its ancient roots in Old English, conjures images of the untamed, the uncontrolled, and the unpredictable—things beyond human reason or management. When this vivid adjective is coupled with "guess," a word that itself implies an estimate made with incomplete information, the meaning becomes crystal clear. A "wild guess" isn't just an informed conjecture; it's a leap into the unknown, a shot fired purely on instinct, untethered from any logical basis or factual foundation. It's a linguistic shrug, an honest admission that one is truly operating without a map, giving permission for the answer to be utterly, wonderfully wrong.
Examples
- I have no idea what the answer is; I'll just take a wild guess and hope for the best.
- Don't expect me to be right; that was purely a wild guess based on a hunch rather than facts.