predict

present singular third person predicts · participle present predicting · participle past predicted · past predicted · first person past singular predicted · archaic present second person singular predictest · past second person singular predicted · archaic past second person singular predictedst · present singular third person predicts · archaic present singular third person predicteth · past singular third person predicted · past plural predicted · past subjunctive predicted · participle present predicting · participle past predicted · alternative archaic prædict

1. transitiveTo make a prediction: to forecast, foretell, or estimate a future event on the basis of knowledge and reasoning; to prophesy a future event on the basis of mystical knowledge or power.

   Professor Trelawney kept predicting Harry’s death, which he found extremely annoying.

   2000 July 8, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], “Mad-Eye Moody”, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter; 4), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 171

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   After he had renounced his fathers bishoprick of Valentia in Spaine... and to attaine by degrees the Maiesty of Cesar, was created Duke of that place, gaue for his poesie, Aut Cesar, aut nihil. which being not fauoured from the heauens, had presently the euent the same predicted.

   1590, E. Daunce, A Briefe Discourse on the Spanish State, section 40

   He [John F. Golding] congratulated them on the success of their anniversary gathering and predicted still greater success for the future.

   1897 April 26, “Brooklyn Alumni Celebrate. Fifth Anniversary of the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy.”, in Caswell A. Mayo, Thomas J. Keenan, editors, American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record […], volume XXX, number 8 (373 overall), New York, N.Y.: American Druggist Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 236, column 3

   The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.

   2012, Jeremy Bernstein, “A Palette of Particles”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 146

2. transitiveusuallylawsTo imply.

   For both men and women, greater symmetry predicted a larger number of past sex partners.

   1996 June 3, Geoffrey Cowley, “The biology of beauty”, in Newsweek

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   It is interesting to see how clearly theory predicts the difference between the ascending and descending curves of a dynamo.

   1886, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 177. 338

3. intransitiveTo make predictions.

   The devil can both predict and make predictors.

   1652, J. Gaule, Πυς-μαντια the mag-astro-mancer, 196

4. raretransitivegovernmentTo direct a ranged weapon against a target by means of a predictor.

   They're predicting us now; looks like a barrage.

   1943, L. Cheshire, Bomber Pilot, iii. 57

plural predicts · alternative archaic prædict

1. obsoleteA prediction.

   Or say with Princes if it shall go well, / By oft predict that I in heaven find.

   1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 14”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC