Meaning
A guess or attempt made with little or no information and only a slim hope of success; a wild guess rather than a calculated risk. Usually in the frames 'take a shot in the dark' or 'it was a shot in the dark'. Neutral to informal; emphasises uncertainty and low odds rather than carelessness. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Built on the literal image of firing a gun at an enemy you cannot see, and on the older slang sense of 'shot' as an attempt, current by the 1840s: Joseph Hewlett's Peter Priggins (1841) has a character who 'made a shot'. Etymonline dates the figurative phrase, 'uninformed guess, random attempt', by 1885. The Phrase Finder credits George Bernard Shaw with the first metaphorical use of the full phrase it could find, in The Saturday Review of February 1895: 'Never did man make a worse shot in the dark.' The near-synonym 'a stab in the dark' appeared around the same period.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a stab in the dark
- a wild shot in the dark
- just a shot in the dark
- take a shot in the dark
Usage Examples
- My estimate for the repair is a shot in the dark until the builders actually open up the wall.
- Naming a suspect without evidence would be a shot in the dark, the detective admitted.
- I took a shot in the dark and guessed her birthday was in March - remarkably, I was right.