Other forms: estimated, estimates, estimating
To estimate is to work out a number roughly, close enough to be useful. How long the drive will take, how many people are in the room, how much paint the wall will swallow.
The noun is the number you land on: a rough estimate, a conservative estimate, an estimate of the damage. Say the two forms differently — the verb ends like mate, the noun ends flat, ESS-tim-ut. In building work an estimate is a written guess at what a job will cost and it can move afterwards; a quote is a fixed price, which is why people ask for a quote and get an estimate. Add over- and under- and you have the two ways of being wrong: he underestimated the traffic, she overestimated how much they would eat. With figures it takes AT — the crowd was estimated at eight thousand.
1verbestimateTo judge a number, size or value roughly, without measuring exactly.~38%
“Scientists estimate that the tree is over five hundred years old.”
2nouncalculationA rough calculation of a number, amount or value.~60%
“Her estimate of the crowd was far too low.”
3nounstatementA written statement of what a piece of work will probably cost.~2%
“We got three estimates before choosing a builder.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 18 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: guess
Estimate comes from Latin aestimo, to set a value or a price on something; the past participle aestimatus reached English through Middle English estimat. The first business of the word was money, what a thing was worth, and the modern rough count asks the same question with numbers instead of coins.
Latin
aestimātus — valuing, estimate
Middle English
estimat
English, today
estimate
From Middle English estimat, Latin aestimātus (“valuing, estimate”), from aestimō + -tus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA