second-guessing

verb

present participle of second-guess
1
as in outguessing

Related Words

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2
as in reasoning

Related Words

Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for second-guessing
  1. balking
  2. reasoning
  3. overreaching
  4. analyzing
  5. outmaneuvering
  6. reviewing
  7. outsmarting
  8. exploring
Verb
  • Medicare has started coverage of GLP-1s for older adults under the bridge program, but some employers and insurers are balking at paying for the weight-loss medications.
    — Ken Alltucker, USA Today, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Many residents are balking at that timing and at Ryan’s lawsuit against Killingly’s wetlands board for rejecting the first version of the plan on July 6.
    — Don Stacom, Hartford Courant, 6 Aug. 2026
Definition of balking
Verb
  • Some aldermen sought to ban them, reasoning that businesses using them should switch to the legalized, and therefore regulated and taxed, VGTs.
    — Joe Ferguson, Chicago Tribune, 25 Aug. 2026
  • Every prompt, retrieval, reasoning step and autonomous agent action consumes tokens that translate directly into cost.
    — Daniel Fallmann, Forbes.com, 20 Aug. 2026
Definition of reasoning
Verb
  • While most judges have categorized such requests as overreaching or for an improper purpose, two out of three judges on the panel ruled that there was nothing out of line about the QueerDoc request.
    — Theresa Gaffney, STAT, 20 Aug. 2026
  • Republican lawmakers disagree, saying that the approval is just another example of an overreaching government.
    — Tom Wait, CBS News, 19 Aug. 2026
Definition of overreaching
Verb
  • Markovic is a deputy principal investigator for one of the teams tasked with analyzing the barrage of data (enough to fill up the storage on about 40,000 laptops over Roman’s five-year mission).
    — Noah Haggerty, Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Researchers often study natural processes by modeling them as computations and analyzing them mathematically.
    — Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of analyzing
Verb
  • The characters' abilities are built around outmaneuvering, not outgunning.
    — Brian Mazique, Forbes.com, 15 Aug. 2026
  • May built one of the most dominant teams in Big Ten history by outmaneuvering his peers in the transfer portal.
    — Austin Meek, New York Times, 30 June 2026
Definition of outmaneuvering
Verb
  • After reviewing the evidence, an internal review board was divided on whether Garcia-Alamilla was justified in using deadly force.
    — Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Finding relevant evidence may require searching multiple databases, reviewing individual studies, and comparing current clinical guidelines.
    — Matthew Kayser, USA Today, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of reviewing
Verb
  • The problem, according to Hinton, is that humans will no longer be able to rely on outsmarting super-intelligent AI models.
    — Matt Egan, CNN Money, 6 Aug. 2026
  • The Fan, the season-long unsub obsessed with one-upping and outsmarting his idol.
    — Joyce Eng, Entertainment Weekly, 23 July 2026
Definition of outsmarting
Verb
  • Viral food trends may offer an easy entry point to exploring a new cuisine, said Shereshewsky, but don’t let that overshadow the history of a dish.
    — Rebecca Boone, Chicago Tribune, 31 Aug. 2026
  • Yi offers her readers a dazzling cabinet of curiosities, exploring spirituality, desire and the desperate ways people grasp at each other.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 31 Aug. 2026
Definition of exploring
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

second-guesses
second-guessing
secondhand
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Cite this Entry

“Second-guessing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/second-guessing. Accessed 1 Sep. 2026.

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