Guesstimate
A compound word that highlights that not all human innovation is worthwhile.
It combines two shorter words, guess and estimate, to produce a longer word yet conveys nothing additional beyond its roots. A guess and an estimate are virtually synonymous already, and while attempts will be made to parse their degrees of calculation and the quality of their foundations, they are not fundamentally changed in any semantic sense.
All guesses are still guesses, and all estimates are still estimates, both of which are an attempt at approximating truth in the absence of verification.
A guesstimate is no different.
Posted: 1 Jan 2023
