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/prˈɛdəkˌeɪt/ /prˈɛdɪkət/ Listen

noun

Predicate n.

(Logic) That which is affirmed or denied of the subject. In these propositions, "Paper is white," "Ink is not white," whiteness is the predicate affirmed of paper and denied of ink.

(Gram.) The word or words in a proposition which express what is affirmed of the subject.

Synonyms: Affirmation; declaration.

verb

Predicate v. t. (past & past part. predicated; pres. part. predicating)

To assert to belong to something; to affirm (one thing of another); as, to predicate whiteness of snow.

To found; to base. (U.S.) Note: Predicate is sometimes used in the United States for found or base; as, to predicate an argument on certain principles; to predicate a statement on information received. Predicate is a term in logic, and used only in a single case, namely, when we affirm one thing of another. "Similitude is not predicated of essences or substances, but of figures and qualities only."

Predicate v. i. To affirm something of another thing; to make an affirmation.

adjective

Predicate adj. Predicated.

See images of 'Predicate'

Etymology of 'Predicate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Predicate" Quotes from Famous Books

... is limited to the Passive Voice."—P. 131. Afterwards, in spite of the fancied limitation, he acknowledges the passive use of the participle in ing, and that there is "authority" for it; but, at the same time, most absurdly supposes the word to predicate "action," and also to be wrong: saying, "Action is sometimes predicated of a passive subject. EXAMPLE—'The house is building,.. for.. 'The house is being built,'.. which means.. The house is becoming built." On this, he remarks thus: "This is one of ...

— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Heroism," and as she sought among the dusky annals of the past for instances in confirmation of her predicate, that female intellect was capable of the most exalted attainments, and that the elements of her character would enable woman to cope successfully with difficulties of every class, her voice grew clear, firm, and deep. Quitting ...

— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... to me, is the immortality we so glibly predicate of departed artists. If they survive at all, it is but a shadowy life they live, moving on through the gradations of slow decay to distant but inevitable death. They can no longer, as heretofore, speak directly to the hearts of their fellow-men, ...

— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... yellowness is only some sensation of yellow raised to the cognitive power and employed as the symbol for its own specific essence. It is consequently capable of entering as a term into rational discourse and of becoming the subject or predicate of propositions eternally valid. A thing, on the contrary, is discovered only when the order and grouping of such recurring essences can be observed, and when various themes and strains of experience are woven together into elaborate progressive harmonies. When consciousness first becomes cognitive ...

— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... a tragic side to this question. I mean that, after all, a sublime simplicity of mind is a necessary predicate to the acceptance of this "cheap" fiction. "A penn'orth o' loove," George the Fourth calls a novelette, and there's something very grim to me in ...

— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

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