predictor

plural predictors

1. Something that anticipates, predicts, or foretells.

   The rainfall in April is a predictor for the number of mosquitoes in May.

   2 more examples

   The predictor in the traffic-light control circuit tries to figure out how fast to change the lights.

   “Homeownership,” says John H. Mollenkopf, executive director of the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York Graduate Center, “is the strongest predictor of being likely to turn out in local politics and being a bit more conservative and antitax in your general outlook.”

   2007 May 27, Sam Roberts, “In a City Known for Its Renters, a Record Number Now Own Their Homes”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 27 Feb 2021

2. A predictor variable.
3. uncommonOne who predicts.

   So if a prophet isn’t primarily a future predictor, what is a prophet?

   2015, Thomas Calnan Sorenson, Liberating the Bible: A Pastor’s Guided Tour for Seeking Christians, Archway Publishing, →ISBN

   4 more examples

   THE only individual in this great city who has had a really easy time is the weather predictor; his only task from day to day has been to announce rain and gales, and through it all he has readily ranked as a prophet with honor in […]

   1900, Fur Trade Review Weekly, volume 28, page 223

   The “Annual Register” for 1809 contains an extract from a remarkable letter, dated Bath, April 2nd, in which the writer describes the effects of an extraordinary panic arising from a supposed prophecy of the end of the world. The account is headed “Bath Credulity,” and the writer states:—“[…] Some affirmed that Joanna Southcott was the predictor, others that it was a prophet now living at Midford, near this city, who was with Noah in the Ark, and has been travelling over various parts of the world ever since; but the greater part affixed the name of a female fortune-teller residing at Bath.[…],” etc.

   1907 April 6, “Curiosities of the Calendar”, in Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, number 5,072, Cheltenham, Glos, page 8, column 4

   The All Over Arkansas Man marks a prediction and calls for the next predictor. If a predictress will do as well, I will proceed to predict that within 10 years from this date there will not be a fly in the state of Arkansas.

   1916 August 25, “All Over Arkansas”, in Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, Ark., page four, column 7

   And I look at, for example, on Weather Service, and thinking only in my lifetime, the evolution of how we have come on Weather Service, where we have been able to get down to that regional level, where people, if you talk to them in communities, I mean, maybe it is not such a bad idea that they think that their local weatherperson is the weather predictor.

   2009, Expanding Climate Services at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Developing the National Climate Service: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science and Technology, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, First Session, May 5, 2009 (Serial No. 111-24), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, page 79