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Definition of "predicable" [pred•i•ca•ble]

  • That can be stated or predicated: a predicable conclusion. (adjective)
  • Something, such as a general quality or attribute, that can be predicated. (noun)
  • Logic One of the general attributes of a subject or class. In scholastic thought, the attributes are genus, species, property, differentia, and accident; in Aristotelian thought, they are definition, genus, proprium, and accident. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "predicable" in a sentence
  • "A predicable was another name for a universal, the common term being called a predicable in one relation and a universal in another-a predicable, extensively, in so far as it was applicable to several different things, a universal, intensively, in so far as the attributes indicated were implied in several other notions, as the attributes indicated by 'animal' are implied in 'horse,' 'sheep,'"
  • "In this sense it is called predicable, as distinguished from predicamental, accident, the latter term standing for a real objective form or status of things, and denoting"
  • "If, however, the predicaments are heads of a classification of terms predicable, we may expect to find some connection with the predicables; and, in fact, secondary Substances are species and genus; whilst the remaining nine forms are generally accidents."
Words like "predicable"