19 June 2014

Predicate

[v. pred-i-keyt; adj., n. pred-i-kit]

verb (used with object), pred·i·cat·ed, pred·i·cat·ing.

1. to proclaim; declare; affirm; assert.

2. Logic.

a. to affirm or assert (something) of the subject of a proposition.

b. to make (a term) the predicate of such a proposition.

3. to connote; imply: His retraction predicates a change of attitude.

4. to found or derive (a statement, action, etc.); base (usually followed by on ): He predicated his behavior on his faith in humanity.

verb (used without object), pred·i·cat·ed, pred·i·cat·ing.

5. to make an affirmation or assertion.

adjective

6. predicated.

7. Grammar . belonging to the predicate: a predicate noun.

noun

8. Grammar . (in many languages, as English) a syntactic unit that functions as one of the two main constituents of a simple sentence, the other being the subject, and that consists of a verb, which in English may agree with the subject in number, and of all the words governed by the verb or modifying it, the whole often expressing the action performed by or the state attributed to the subject, as is here in Larry is here.

9. Logic. that which is affirmed or denied concerning the subject of a proposition.

Origin:
1400–50; (noun) late Middle English (< Middle French predicat ) < Medieval Latin praedicātum, noun use of neuter of Latin praedicātus, past participle of praedicāre to declare publicly, assert, equivalent to prae- pre- + dicā ( re ) to show, indicate, make known + -tus past participle suffix; (v. and adj.) < Latin praedicātus; cf. preach

Anagram

I carpeted
aced tripe
reacted pi

Today’s aphorism

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

– Blaise Pascal

On this day

19 June 1623 – birth of Blaise Pascal, controversial French mathematician, physicist, inventor and writer. Formulated ‘Pascal’s Triangle’, a tabular presentation for binomial coefficients, challenged Aristotle’s followers who claimed that ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. The computer programming language, ‘Pascal’, is named in his honour.

19 June 1945 – birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese politician, activist and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient.

19 June 1978 – The original Grumpy Cat, Garfield, first appears in newspaper comic strips in the USA.