Prediction

How to spell prediction

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prediction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prediction mean?

1. nounA statement about what someone expects to happen in the future.

Prediction in a sentence

• The weather prediction for the weekend promised heavy rain.

• Her prediction that house prices would fall proved accurate.

Where does prediction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin praedictio, a noun built on the verb praedicere, which literally meant 'to say beforehand'. That verb joined prae, meaning 'before', to dicere, meaning 'to say' or 'to speak', so a prediction was originally simply a statement issued in advance of the events it described. English picked the word up in the early 1600s, when scholars were borrowing many such Latin abstractions to describe reasoning and forecasting. The dict root is remarkably productive and still hides in plain sight inside relatives like 'dictate', 'verdict', and 'contradict', all of which involve speaking or saying. Knowing that the middle of the word is the speaking element dict, framed by pre and -ion, helps fix the spelling and explains why there is no stray letter between the two parts.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• dict (say/speak, from Latin dicere)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)