conjecture

See also: conjecturé

English

WOTD – 26 June 2007

Etymology

From Old French, from Latin coniectūra (“a guess”), from coniectus, perfect passive participle of cōniciō (“throw or cast together; guess”), from con- (“together”) + iaciō (“throw, hurl”); see jet. Compare adjective, eject, inject, project, reject, subject, object, trajectory, deject, abject, surjection, bijection, interject.

Compare typologically Russian прики́дывать (prikídyvatʹ) (akin to кида́ть (kidátʹ)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kənˈd͡ʒɛk.t͡ʃə(ɹ)/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /kənˈd͡ʒɛk.t͡ʃɚ/

  • Audio (California):

    (file)

• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /kənˈd͡ʒek.t͡ʃə(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Queensland):

    (file)

Noun

conjecture (countable and uncountable, plural conjectures)

1. (formal) A statement or an idea which is unproven, but is thought to be true; a guess.

   I explained it, but it is pure conjecture whether he understood, or not.

2. (formal) A supposition based upon incomplete evidence; a hypothesis.

   The physicist used his conjecture about subatomic particles to design an experiment.

3. (mathematics, linguistics) A statement likely to be true based on available evidence, but which has not been formally proven.
4. (obsolete) Interpretation of signs and omens.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:supposition

Derived terms

• abc conjecture
• Beal conjecture
• Beal's conjecture
• Brocard's conjecture
• Collatz conjecture
• conjecturingly
• Cramér's conjecture
• Dickson's conjecture
• Dixmier conjecture
• double bubble conjecture
• Elliott-Halberstam conjecture
• Fuglede's conjecture
• Gilbreath's conjecture
• Goldbach's conjecture
• Heawood conjecture
• Hedetniemi's conjecture
• honeycomb conjecture
• Ilieff's conjecture
• Jacobian conjecture
• Keller's conjecture
• Langlands conjecture
• Legendre's conjecture
• Mach's conjecture
• metaconjecture
• Meyniel's conjecture
• misconjecture
• Oesterlé-Masser conjecture
• Poincaré conjecture
• Polignac's conjecture
• Pólya's conjecture
• Ramanujan conjecture
• Ramanujan-Petersson conjecture
• Ryu-Takayanagi conjecture
• Sendov's conjecture
• Singmaster's conjecture
• SYZ conjecture
• Szpiro's conjecture
• Thurston's geometrization conjecture
• twin prime conjecture
• Zarankiewicz's crossing number conjecture

Related terms

• conject
• conjectural

Translations

unproven statement; guess

Arabic: فَرَضِيَّة (ar) m (faraḍiyya), اِفْتِرَاض m (iftirāḍ) Azerbaijani: fərziyyə, güman (az), təxmin (az), fərz (az), ehtimal (az) Bulgarian: предположение (bg) n (predpoloženie), догадка (bg) f (dogadka) Chinese: Mandarin: 臆測 / 臆测 (zh) (yìcè), 推測 / 推测 (zh) (tuīcè) Czech: dohad m, konjektura (cs) f Dutch: gissing (nl) f, giswerk (nl) n, conjectuur (nl) f Finnish: arvelu (fi), arvaus (fi), olettamus (fi), otaksuma (fi) French: conjecture (fr) f Galician: conxetura f German: Vermutung (de) f, Verdacht (de) m, Mutmaßung (de) f Greek: εικασία (el) (eikasía), υπόθεση (el) f (ypóthesi) Hungarian: feltételezés (hu), feltevés (hu), sejtés (hu), találgatás (hu) Irish: buille faoi thuairim m Italian: congettura (it) Japanese: 推測 (ja) (すいそくる, suisoku) Latin: coniectūra f Maori: pūmāramarama, tāiringa kōrero Norwegian: Norwegian Bokmål: gjetning c, gjetting c, gjettverk n, antakelse m, formodning c Norwegian Nynorsk: gjetting f, gissing f Ottoman Turkish: تقدیر (takdir) Portuguese: conjetura (pt) f, conjectura (pt) f Romanian: ipoteză (ro), presupunere (ro) f Russian: предположе́ние (ru) n (predpoložénije), дога́дка (ru) f (dogádka) Scottish Gaelic: tuairmse m, barail f, tomhas m Serbo-Croatian: pretpostavka (sh) f, nagađanje n Slovak: konjektúra f Spanish: conjetura (es) f, suposición (es) f, especulación (es) f, teoría (es) f Swedish: förmodan (sv) c Turkish: konjektür (tr)

supposition based upon incomplete evidence; a hypothesis

Arabic: تَخْمِين (ar) m (taḵmīn) Bulgarian: догадка (bg) f (dogadka) Dutch: conjectuur (nl) f, hypothese (nl) f, vermoeden (nl) n Finnish: olettamus (fi), hypoteesi (fi) French: conjecture (fr) f German: Vermutung (de) f, Hypothese (de) f, Konjektur (de) f Greek: υπόθεση (el) f (ypóthesi) Hungarian: feltevés (hu), hipotézis (hu) Japanese: 忖度 (ja) (sontaku) Maori: pūmāramarama Ottoman Turkish: تقدیر (takdir) Portuguese: hipótese (pt) f Romanian: ipoteză (ro) Russian: гипо́теза (ru) f (gipóteza), предположе́ние (ru) n (predpoložénije), дога́дка (ru) f (dogádka) Sanskrit: तर्क (sa) m (tarka) Scottish Gaelic: tuairmse m, barail f, tomhas m Serbo-Croatian: hipoteza (sh) f, pretpostavka (sh) f, spekulacija (sh) f Spanish: conjetura (es) f, suposición (es) f, especulación (es) f, teoría (es) f, hipótesis (es) f Swedish: förmodan (sv) c, hypotes (sv) c Turkish: tahmin (tr)

statement likely to be true based on available evidence, but which has not been formally proven

Dutch: hypothese (nl) f, vermoeden (nl) n Finnish: otaksuma (fi), olettamus (fi), väite (fi) French: conjecture (fr) f German: Vermutung (de) f, Hypothese (de) f Greek: υπόθεση (el) f or n (ypóthesi) Hebrew: השערה (he) f (hash'ará) Hungarian: sejtés (hu) Icelandic: tilgáta (is) f Maori: pūmāramarama Norwegian: Norwegian Bokmål: konjektur m Norwegian Nynorsk: konjektur m Portuguese: conjetura (pt) f, conjectura (pt) f Romanian: supoziție (ro), teoremă (ro) Russian: предположе́ние (ru) n (predpoložénije) Scottish Gaelic: tuairmse m, barail f Serbo-Croatian: pretpostavka (sh) f Spanish: conjetura (es) f, suposición (es) f, especulación (es) f, teoría (es) f Swedish: förmodan (sv) c Turkish: konjektür (tr)

Verb

conjecture (third-person singular simple present conjectures, present participle conjecturing, simple past and past participle conjectured)

1. (formal, intransitive) To guess; to venture an unproven idea.

   I do not know if it is true; I am simply conjecturing here.

   • 1952 December, 'Mercury', “Modern French Locomotive Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 804:

     What could have been done by such a machine downhill can only be conjectured, for the maximum speed was restricted rigidly to 80 m.p.h.

2. (transitive) To infer on slight evidence; to guess at.
   • February 22, 1685, Robert South, All Contingences under the Direction of God's Providence (sermon preached at Westminster Abbey)
   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 243:

     "Most likely he who is the shorter of the two;—no! he goes in the first, and is, of course, the eldest; but we have no time for conjecturing now."
     Human reason can then, at the best, but conjecture what will be.

Derived terms

• conjecturability
• conjecturable
• misconjecture
• unconjectured

Translations

to guess

Bulgarian: предполагам (bg) (predpolagam) Chinese: Mandarin: 推測 / 推测 (zh) (tuīcè) Dutch: gissen (nl), vermoeden (nl), veronderstellen (nl) Esperanto: konjekti Finnish: arvailla (fi) French: conjecturer (fr) German: vermuten (de), mutmaßen (de), spekulieren (de) Greek: εικάζω (el) (eikázo), υποθέτω (el) (ypothéto) Ancient: ὑπονοέω (huponoéō) Hungarian: feltételez (hu), találgat (hu), feltételezésekbe bocsátkozik Italian: congetturare (it) Japanese: 推測する (ja) (すいそくする, suisoku suru) Latin: opīnor, * Latin: coniectō Portuguese: conjeturar (pt) Quechua: hamurpay Russian: гада́ть (ru) impf (gadátʹ), предполага́ть (ru) impf (predpolagátʹ) Serbo-Croatian: nagađati (sh) Spanish: conjeturar (es), barruntar (es), especular (es), elucubrar (es) Swedish: förmoda (sv)

Further reading

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “conjecture”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “conjecture”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “conjecture”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.ʒɛk.tyʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Latin coniectūra.

Noun

conjecture f (plural conjectures)

1. conjecture

   Near-synonyms: hypothèse, supputation

Usage notes

• Not to be confused with conjoncture.

Derived terms

• conjecturer

Further reading

• “conjecture”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

conjecture

1. inflection of conjecturer:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Latin

Participle

conjectūre

1. vocative masculine singular of conjectūrus

Portuguese

Verb

conjecture

1. inflection of conjecturar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative