1. To conjecture; to judge without any certain principles of judgment.
2. To conjecture rightly, or upon some just reason.--Johnson.
Incapable and shallow innocents!
You cannot guess who caused your father's death.--Shakspeare.
One may guess by Plato's writings, that his meaning as to the inferior deities was, that they who would have them might, and they who would not might let them alone; but that himself had a right opinion concerning the true God.--Stillingfleet.
We thus see that the legitimate, English sense of this word is to conjecture; but with us, and especially in New England, it is constantly used in common conversation instead of to believe, to suppose, to think, to imagine, to fancy. From such examples as the words to fix and to guess, it will be seen that while on the one hand we have a passion for coining new and unnecessary words and often in a manner opposed to the analogies of the language, there is on the other hand a tendency to banish from common use a number of the most useful and classical English expressions, by forcing one word to do duty for a host of others of somewhat similar meaning. This latter practice is by far the more dangerous of the two; because, if not checked and guarded against in time, it will corrode the very texture and substance of the language, and rob posterity of the power of appreciating and enjoying those masterpieces of literature bequeathed to us by our forefathers, which form the richest inheritance of all that speak the English tongue.