Question

Does a hypothesis in science mean a tentative guess?

Answer 1

If you like. I would prefer `"an explanation consistent with the data."`

Explanation:

An `"hypothesis"` is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The hypothesis may be wrong or right; the hypothesis is `"scientific"` if it is `"testable"`.

`"Testability"` is the hallmark of a scientific hypothesis. The hypothesis may be wrong or right, but in order to be scientific, it must be `"testable"`. That is, we can do further experiments to test the accuracy of the hypothesis, and such tests lead to clear results that allows confirmation or rejection of the original hypothesis.