英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

hit [hit 词源字典]: hit: [11] Hit is one of those words, now so common that we assume it has always been around, that is in fact a comparative latecomer to the English language, and one, what is more, whose ancestry is not at all clear. The standard Old English verb for ‘strike’ was slēan (modern English slay), but at the end of the Old English period hit suddenly appeared. It was borrowed from Old Norse hitta, a verb of unknown origin which meant not ‘strike’ but ‘come upon, find’ (as Swedish hitta still does). This sense was carried over into English (and still survives in hit upon), and it was not until the 13th century that the meaning ‘strike’ began to appear.
[hit etymology, hit origin, 英语词源]
guess (v.): c. 1300, gessen "to infer from observation, perceive, find out; form an opinion, judge, decide, discern; evaluate, estimate the number, importance, etc. of," perhaps from Scandinavian (compare Middle Danish gitse, getze "to guess," Old Norse geta "guess, get"), or from or influenced by Middle Dutch gessen, Middle Low German gissen "to guess," all from Proto-Germanic *getan "to get" (see get (v.)). The prehistoric sense evolution then would be from "get," to "take aim at," to "to estimate." Meaning "to hit upon the right answer" is from 1540s. Spelling with gu- is late 16c., sometimes attributed to Caxton and his early experience as a printer in Bruges. Related: Guessed; guessing. Guessing game attested from 1650s. To keep (someone) guessing "keep him in a state of suspense" is from 1896, American English.
[T]he legitimate, English sense of this word is to conjecture; but with us, and especially in New England, it is constantly used in common conversation instead of to believe, to suppose, to think, to imagine, to fancy. [Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848]