DictionaryAI

predict

pri-DIKT/pɹɪˈdɪkt/

Formspredicts, predicting, predicted

5 meanings of predict

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive
    To forecast or estimate a future event using knowledge and reasoning, or to foretell one through claimed mystical power.

    Economists predict a slowdown in growth next year.

    The oracle predicted the fall of the kingdom.

    Similarforecast, foresee, foretell, anticipate, prophesy

    Note

    Latin gives the shape plainly: prae- "before" plus dīcō "to say", so to predict is literally to say beforehand. It is built the same way as the native foretell, forespeak and foresay. The verb serves the scientist and the seer alike. J. K. Rowling's Professor Trelawney keeps predicting Harry's death, while Jeremy Bernstein, writing in American Scientist in 2012, describes particles predicted by theorists decades before anyone observed them.

  2. 2
    verbintransitive
    To make predictions; to state what one expects will happen.

    Skilled analysts predict with surprising accuracy.

    He predicted confidently, though he gave no specifics.

    Similarforecast, prophesy, speculate

    Note

    Without an object, the verb names the activity itself rather than any particular outcome. J. Gaule's Πυς-μαντια the mag-astro-mancer (1652) says the devil "can both predict and make predictors". There the predictors are people who foretell, not yet the gunnery machine behind the anti-aircraft sense.

  3. 3
    verbtransitive
    Of a theory, law, or similar principle, to imply a particular result or fact as one of its consequences.

    Einstein's equations predict that light bends as it passes close to a massive star.

    If the model is right, it predicts that prices must fall when supply doubles.

    Similarimply, entail, suggest, indicate

    Note

    Here the subject is not a person but a theory, a law of nature or a measured trait, and the future may not come into it. In the Philosophical Transactions of 1886, theory predicts the curves of a dynamo; in Geoffrey Cowley's 1996 Newsweek article, greater symmetry predicted past sex partners. Read it as "entails" or "goes with," not as the forecasting sense: nobody is looking ahead.

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    verbraretransitive
    To aim a ranged weapon at a target with the help of a predictor.

    Anti-aircraft crews predicted the incoming bombers using mechanical predictors.

    They're predicting us now; looks like a barrage.
    1943, L. Cheshire, Bomber Pilot
    Note

    Gunnery takes the verb over and changes its object: what gets predicted is the target, not a future event. A predictor was the fire-control device that worked out where a moving aircraft would be when the shell arrived. L. Cheshire's Bomber Pilot (1943) gives the view from above: "They're predicting us now; looks like a barrage." The use is rare and belongs to that wartime setting.

  2. 5
    nounobsolete
    A foretelling of a future event; a prediction.

    The seer's predict proved accurate, much to the court's alarm.

    Or say with Princes if it shall go well, / By oft predict that I in heaven find.
    1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 14”
    Note

    A noun that did not survive. Shakespeare's Sonnet 14 (1609) has "By oft predict that I in heaven find," with the forecasts read in the heavens. Today prediction does this work. The bare noun predict belongs only to quoting or imitating that period, and in ordinary modern prose it reads as a mistake.

Use it in a sentence

Write your own sentence with predict, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.

Origin

Recorded from the early 17th century, from Latin praedīcō "to mention beforehand" (past participle praedictus), formed from prae- "before" plus dīcō "to say."