predicate
Etymology 1

From Middle French predicat (French prédicat), from post-classical Late Latin praedicātum, a noun use of the neuter past participle of praedicō, as Etymology 2, below.

Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈpɹɛd.ɪ.kət/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈpɹɛd.ɪ.kɪt/
Noun

predicate (plural predicates)

  1. (grammar) The part of the sentence (or clause) which states a property that a subject has or is characterized by.
    Coordinate terms: adjunct, attribute
  2. (logic) A term of a statement, where the statement may be true or false depending on whether the thing referred to by the values of the statement's variables has the property signified by that (predicative) term.
    A propositional variable may be treated as a nullary predicate.
    A predicate is either valid, satisfiable, or unsatisfiable.
  3. (computing) An operator or function that returns either true or false.
Translations Translations Adjective

predicate

  1. (grammar) Of or related to the predicate of a sentence or clause.
  2. Predicated, stated.
  3. (law) Relating to or being any of a series of criminal acts upon which prosecution for racketeering may be predicated.
Etymology 2

From Latin praedicātus, perfect passive participle of praedicō, from prae + dicō, related to dīcō.

Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈpɹɛdɪˌkeɪt/
Verb

predicate (predicates, present participle predicating; simple past and past participle predicated)

  1. (transitive) To announce, assert, or proclaim publicly.
  2. (transitive) To assume or suppose; to infer.
    • 1859, Charles Dickens, “The Wine-shop”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC ↗, book I (Recalled to Life), page 21 ↗:
      There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided.
    • 1880–1881, Thomas Hardy, chapter II, in A Laodicean; or, The Castle of the De Stancys. A Story of To-day. […], volume II, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, […], published 1881, →OCLC ↗, book the third (De Stancy), page 59 ↗:
      Of anyone else it would have been said that she was finding the afternoon rather dreary in the vast halls not of her forefathers: but of Miss Power it was unsafe to predicate so surely.
  3. (transitive, originally, US) to base (on); to assert on the grounds of.
    • 1978, Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin 1998, page 81):
      The law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated.
  4. (transitive, grammar) To make a term (or expression) the predicate of a statement.
  5. (transitive, logic) To assert or state as an attribute or quality of something.
    • 1911, Encyclopedia Britannica, Conceptualism
      This quality becomes real as a mental concept when it is predicated of all the objects possessing it (“quod de pluribus natum est praedicari”).
Translations Translations Translations
  • Portuguese: basear-se em
Translations


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