The word second-guess is a hyphenated compound word, which is a word that is derived from two separate words joined together with a hyphen. We will examine the definition of second-guess, where this word came from and some examples of its use in sentences.





To second-guess is to criticize someone’s judgement, to question a decision someone has made. One may second-guess someone else, or one may second-guess oneself. Second-guess is a transitive verb which is a verb that takes an object, related words are second-guesses, second-guessed, second-guessing. The word second-guess first appeared in the United States in the 1940s, and is related to the game of baseball. During the 1930s, the umpire officiating a baseball game was known as a guesser, and people who questioned the umpire’s decisions were known as secondguessers. Eventually, the verb second-guess was coined as a back-formation from the word secondguesser. A back-formation is a word that is constructed from a word that already exists, usually by dropping a suffix.




