the.com/shot in the dark
A guess dressed up as an attempt, fired at a target you can't see.
means An attempt or guess made with no real information to go on, offering little chance of being right but tried anyway.
from A literal image turned idiom: someone firing a gun into darkness, unable to see the target, hoping blind luck lands the shot. The phrase surfaces in English in the 19th century as a figure of speech for a wild guess or risky attempt based on little evidence — the darkness standing in for ignorance, the shot for the gamble taken anyway.
- origin
- literal 1880s phrase, guessing blind before flashlights existed
- cousin term
- long shot implies odds, this implies none
- paradox
- people say it right before being surprisingly accurate
- usage tell
- always precedes a guess nobody will be mad about