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Geschattegeschatte is a neologism used in online discourse and occasional sociolinguistic writing to denote the practice of recursively estimating others' beliefs within a conversation. The term is a reduplication of a stem formed to signal recursion, and it is typically treated as humorous or informal rather than a formal linguistic label. The coinage appears in German-language forums and blogs in the late 2010s and early 2020s, often in discussions about online debate dynamics and forecasting.

Definition and concept: geschattegeschatte describes the phenomenon in which an interlocutor attempts to forecast not only what someone thinks about a topic but what that person thinks about others' thoughts, producing nested estimations. An example might involve a thread where a participant says, “I assume you think that I think X,” which then prompts further speculation about levels of belief. The term emphasizes the meta-level nature of the exchange rather than the substantive content of the argument.

Usage and reception: The term is primarily found in informal online contexts, including social media, forums, and commentary blogs. It has limited traction in formal linguistics or pedagogy. Proponents view geschattegeschatte as a concise label for meta-discussion and recursive reasoning, while critics argue that the word is opaque and can obscure the core arguments being discussed.

See also: metacognition, metareasoning, nested forecasting, meta-communication.