Predictive

How to spell predictive

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce predictive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does predictive mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or able to forecast what will happen in the future based on data or patterns.

Predictive in a sentence

• The phone's predictive text feature suggested the next word before she finished typing.

• The insurance firm uses predictive models to estimate future claims.

Where does predictive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb praedicere, meaning 'to foretell' or 'to say beforehand', formed from prae 'before' and dicere 'to say or tell'. The same dicere root gives English a whole family of words about speaking, including 'dictate', 'verdict', and 'contradict'. The noun 'prediction' arrived in English in the early 1600s, and the adjective 'predictive' followed by the mid-1600s to describe anything that foretells or forecasts. Its modern surge owes much to technology, where 'predictive text' and 'predictive analytics' have made the word part of everyday speech. The spelling stays faithful to the Latin: the 'dict' chunk meaning 'said' is the steady spine that keeps the middle of the word easy to anchor.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• dict (from Latin dicere: to say, to tell)
• -ive (adjective suffix, tending to)