Predicate
WordNet
noun
(1) One of the two main constituents of a sentence; the predicate contains the verb and its complements
(2) (logic) what is predicated of the subject of a proposition; the second term in a proposition is predicated of the first term by means of the copula
"`Socrates is a man' predicates manhood of Socrates"
verb
(3) Involve as a necessary condition of consequence; as in logic
"Solving the problem is predicated on understanding it well"
(4) Affirm or declare as an attribute or quality of
"The speech predicated the fitness of the candidate to be President"
(5) Make the (grammatical) predicate in a proposition
"The predicate `dog' is predicated of the subject `Fido' in the sentence `Fido is a dog'"
WiktionaryText
Etymology 1
From Middle French predicat (French prédicat), from post-classical praedicatum ‘thing said of a subject’, a noun use of the neuter past participle of praedicare ‘proclaim’, as Etymology 2, below.
Noun
- 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".
- A statement that may be true or false depending on the values of its variables.
- An operator or function that returns either true or false.
Etymology 2
From the participle stem of , from + < .
Verb
- To announce or assert publicly.
- To state, assert.
- 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
- 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)