You can picture perhaps as a hand held slightly open, palm up — 'maybe yes, maybe no, I'm not nailing it down.' The word is literally 'per' (by) + 'haps' (chance, luck), so it means 'as it may happen by chance.' That one gesture of leaving things uncertain spreads into all its uses: a guess, an opinion, a number, or a polite offer.
From the word’s history
From 'per' (by, through) + Middle English 'hap' (chance, luck) — the same 'hap' as in 'happen' and 'perhaps' literally means 'by chance, as it may fall out.'
由 per（藉由）＋中古英語 hap（機運、運氣）組成——和 happen 裡的 hap 同源；perhaps 字面上就是「看機運、照事情怎麼發生」。
Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), 'perhaps'
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
perhapsadv/pəˈhæps/
- 1
Possibly.
- Perhaps John will come over for dinner.
- There was a perhaps credible witness.
- 2
datedBy chance.
- […] will live until he dies perhaps, and then lie down in clover.
perhapsnoun/pəˈhæps/
- 1
An uncertainty.
- I cannot conceive what atheism, or skepticism, or positivism could do for me now, with their negations, and endless and contradictory perhapses, and perhapses, and perhapses.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。