(cāi) - to guess, to speculate in Mandarin
cāiTraditional: 猜
Translation
to guess, to speculate
Word origin
猜 is a phono-semantic compound: the dog or beast radical 犭hints at the original sense, while 青 (qīng) supplies the sound. It means to guess or to speculate.
- Origin
- phono-semantic compound
- Root
- 犭(dog/beast radical) + 青 (qīng, phonetic)
Stroke order
猜
Examples
？
Guess where I am?
。
I guess he won't come.
！
You guessed right!
。
Guess how old I am.
。
He guessed the answer correctly.
猜 (cāi) means to guess or to speculate about something unknown. It is used both as a direct invitation to guess (你猜, you guess) and to express an inference (我猜, I guess/think). The result complement 猜对 means to guess correctly and 猜错 means to guess wrong. 猜谜 (cāi mí) means to solve a riddle. In everyday speech 我猜 functions similarly to I think or I suppose.
Used in
Grammar articles
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