Oh this is a fun rabbit hole to go down: Gauss indeed wrote "methodisches tatonniren"[1], the latter of which is not a common German word, nor does it suggest

Oh this is a fun rabbit hole to go down: Gauss indeed wrote "methodisches tatonniren"[1], the latter of which is not a common German word, nor does it suggest grouping. I believe it to be an expression used at the time which was borrowed from French "tâtonner", which means "fumble", to describe a step-by-step process, "approaching" a solution. The closest I get in modern German is "herantasten", which in turn does not have an elegant English translation; you will have to take its elements "heran" (onto) and "tasten" (touch/feel/grope) individually to judge how close it is to fumble. So, methodical groping is not as far off as you might have thought! [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=3jEDAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA106&lpg=RA1-PA106&dq=8+königinnen+gauss&source=bl&ots=BuaJSJydKs&sig=1Z78TngV_y6IyQ8QNRwSVmvohvY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim0v3zhZHQAhXolFQKHStQCFYQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q&f=true https://books.google.com/books?id=3jEDAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA106&... This may be a typo—the regular verb form would be "tatonnieren"—then again a lot of German spelling has changed since the time of those letters.