aestimare

Aestimare is a Latin verb meaning to estimate, value, appraise, judge, or suppose. It is commonly translated as “to estimate” or “to esteem” in English. The principal parts are aestimo, aestimare, aestimavi, aestimatus, and it belongs to the first conjugation.

The term is of Latin origin and has given rise to several Romance-language cognates, such as French estimer, Spanish estimar, and Italian stimare. These descendants retain the core sense of valuing or judging something, reflecting the broad semantic range of the Latin verb in contexts of assessment, valuation, and opinion.

In Latin usage, aestimare is transitive and typically governs a direct object in the accusative, referring to the act of ascribing value or making a judgment about a thing, person, or action. Its sense can range from numerical or monetary appraisal to moral or rhetorical evaluation, and it can also convey the notion of thinking or considering something to be true or probable in a figurative sense. The verb appears across genres, including rhetoric and prose, often in discussions of worth, price, or opinion.

Today, aestimare is primarily encountered in scholarly discussions of Latin and in translated or pedigreed texts. It is listed as a regular, active verb of the first conjugation, with a distribution similar to other value-assignment verbs in Latin. In English-language sources, it is usually glossed as “to estimate,” “to value,” or “to esteem,” and it is cited mainly for linguistic, philological, and historical purposes.