different between predictability vs predict

English

Etymology

predict +? -ability

Noun

predictability (plural predictabilities)

1. The characteristic of being predictable.

   • There are several ways to approach predictability. One way is to investigate whether asset prices over the past few days or weeks can be used to predict tomorrow’s price. The answer is no. Following a large amount of careful statistical work by Fama in the 1960s, researchers now agree that past prices are of very little use in predicting returns over the immediate future. [...] An implication of the excessive swings in stock prices is that a high ratio of price relative to dividends in one year will tend to be followed by a fall in prices relative to dividends over subsequent years, and vice versa. This means that returns follow a predictable pattern in the longer run. Shiller and his collaborators demonstrated such predictability in stock markets as well as bond markets, and other researchers have later confirmed this finding in many other markets.

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• prædict (archaic)

Etymology

Early 17th century, from Latin praed?c? (“to mention beforehand”) (perfect passive participle praedictus), from prae- (“before”) + d?c? (“to say”). Equivalent to Germanic forespeak, foretell, and foresay.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p???d?kt/
• Rhymes: -?kt

Verb

predict (third-person singular simple present predicts, present participle predicting, simple past and past participle predicted)

1. (transitive) To 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.
   • 1590, E. Daunce, A Briefe Discourse on the Spanish State, 40

     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.

   • 2000, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, xiii.

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

   • 2012, Jeremy Bernstein, "A Palette of Particles" in American Scientist, Vol. 100, No. 2, p. 146

     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.

2. (transitive, of theories, laws, etc.) To imply.
   • 1886, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 177. 338

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

   • 1996 June 3, Geoffrey Cowley. The biology of beauty, Newsweek

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

3. (intransitive) To make predictions.
   • 1652, J. Gaule, ???-?????? the mag-astro-mancer, 196

     The devil can both predict and make predictors.

4. (transitive, military, rare) To direct a ranged weapon against a target by means of a predictor.
   • 1943, L. Cheshire, Bomber Pilot, iii. 57

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

Synonyms

• foretell, forespell, forespeak, halsen

Antonyms

• retrodict

Related terms

Translations

Noun

predict (plural predicts)

1. (obsolete) A prediction.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 14:

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

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “predict”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Middle French

Verb

predict

1. past participle of predire