predicate

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Wikipedia

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1 1.1.1 Pronunciation 1.1.2 Noun 1.1.2.1 Derived terms 1.1.2.2 Translations 1.2 Etymology 2 1.2.1 Pronunciation 1.2.2 Verb 1.2.2.1 Translations 2 Italian 2.1 Verb

[edit] English

[edit] Etymology 1

From Middle French predicat (French prédicat), from post-classical Latin praedicatum ‘thing said of a subject’, a noun use of the neuter past participle of praedicare ‘proclaim’, as Etymology 2, below.

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈprɛdɪkət/

[edit] Noun

predicate (plural predicates)

1. (grammar) The part of the sentence (or clause) which states something about the subject.

   In "The dog barked very loudly", the subject is "the dog" and the predicate is "barked very loudly".

2. (logic) A statement that may be true or false depending on the values of its variables.
3. (computing) An operator or function that returns either true or false.

[edit] Derived terms

• nominal predicative
• predicate calculus
• predicative adjective
• predicatively

[edit] Translations

[edit] Etymology 2

From the participle stem of Latin praedicare, from prae- (“‘pre-’”) + dicare (“‘to proclaim’”) < dicere (“‘to say, tell’”).

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈprɛdɪˌkeɪt/

[edit] Verb

to predicate (third-person singular simple present predicates, present participle predicating, simple past and past participle predicated)

1. (transitive) To announce or assert publicly.
2. (transitive, logic) To state, assert.
3. (transitive) To suppose, assume; to infer.
   • 1859: 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. — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
   • 1881: Of anyone else it would have been said that she must be finding the afternoon rather dreary in the quaint halls not of her forefathers: but of Miss Power it was unsafe to predicate so surely. — Thomas Hardy, A Laodicean
4. (transitive, originally US) To base (on); to assert on the grounds of.
   • 1978: the law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated. — Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin 1998, p. 81)

[edit] Translations

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[edit] Italian

[edit] Verb

predicate

1. second person plural present tense and imperative of predicare