conjecture
verb
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Conjecturing—forming an idea or opinion with some amount of guesswork—usually involves more than simply throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks, but that’s the gist, and with good etymological reason: conjecture comes ultimately from the Latin verb conicere, which means, literally, “to throw together.” To conjecture is to make an educated guess rather than a stab in the dark; it involves piecing together bits of information to come to a plausible conclusion, as in “scientists conjecturing about the cause of the disease.” As such, conjecture tends to show up in formal contexts rather than informal ones, though we reckon one could conjecture if their spaghetti is perfectly cooked based on the amount of time it has been boiling, and on what has worked in the past. (Nota bene: throwing it at the wall doesn’t work!)
Examples of conjecture in a Sentence
Martin Gardner, Skeptical Inquirer, November/December 1998
… their traces left for future archaeologists to rediscover and perhaps to wonder or conjecture over.
—Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, 1984
I am anxious to conjecture beforehand what may be expected from the sowing turneps [sic] in jaded ground, how much from the acre, & how large they will be?
—Thomas Jefferson, letter, 29 Dec. 1794
Some have conjectured that the distant planet could sustain life.
We only conjecture about his motives.
ArsTechnica, 1 June 2026
Suspicion fell on Shiite families, though many dismissed these conjectures; in Ain el-Mreisseh, people know their neighbors.
—Rania Abouzeid, New Yorker, 21 May 2026
Broadly speaking, this is why Grothendieck and others could use schemes — and a series of ideas building on them — to re-prove one of the four Weil conjectures and prove two more.
—Konstantin Kakaes, Quanta Magazine, 20 May 2026
Or, in some cases with Goodman, might lie within the realm of fantasy, delusion, and conjecture?
—Literary Hub, 13 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for conjecture
Cite this Entry
“Conjecture.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conjecture. Accessed 12 Jun. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
conjecture
1 of 2 noun
conjecture
2 of 2 verb
