anyone's guess
9
7.0
- idiom
- Informal
:
es un misterio
- My own future felt like anyone's guess.
Examples
-
How much will be lost in the impending inundation is anyone's guess.
Academic text (2006) -
Which applied more, where, and when in our past, is anyone's guess.
Academic text (2000) -
What the final product will be is anyone's guess at this point.
Blog text (17) -
Where this leads next is anyone's guess.
Fiction book (2002) -
But it's anyone's guess where the next meal is coming from.
-
Exactly why it happened is anyone's guess, and the reasons were probably many and varied.
Blog text (13) -
How that will affect the country is anyone's guess, but I fear the prospects for peace are bleak.
Blog text (21) -
How this plays into his longstanding campaign to reform congressional ethics is now anyone's guess.
Fiction book (1992) -
Whether the social ideologues can come to grips with this reality is anyone's guess.
Blog text (32) -
What happens after this event is anyone's guess.
Synonyms
768
1.0
An answer or opinion made without enough information
366
3.5
You cannot be sure what will happen
1
7.4
Something you say when you do not know the answer any more than the other person does
Antonyms
How Certain
946
1.0
200
3.4
149
2.8
- Informal
9
7.0
80
6.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the constituents: 'anyone' (any person) + 'guess' (an answer offered without sufficient information) yields the idea that the outcome is something anyone might conjecture, i.e. unpredictable. This possessive + noun composition is transparent and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the idiom's sense.
Etymology
Anyone's guess comes from the simple picture of many people all offering different guesses because no one has the real answer. That's why calling something anyone's guess means it is 'very uncertain' or 'hard to predict'.