predictive

Borrowed from Latin praedictivus, from praedico. Equivalent to predict +‎ -ive.

• IPA^(key): /pɹɪˈdɪk.tɪv/
• Rhymes: -ɪktɪv

predictive (comparative more predictive, superlative most predictive)

1. Useful in predicting.

   The amount of rain in April is predictive of the number of mosquitoes in May.

2. (computing) Describing a predictor.
3. (medicine) Expressing the expected accuracy of a statistical measure or of a diagnostic test.

• reactive

predictive (plural predictives)

1. (grammar) A conditional statement that includes a prediction in the dependent clause (e.g. "if it rains, the game will be cancelled", "give her an inch and she'll take a mile.").
   • 1999, Barbara Dancygier, Conditionals and Prediction: Time, Knowledge and Causation in Conditional Constructions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 76:

     Also, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, predictive conditionals show a high degree of integration thanks to the patterns of verb forms which are characteristic for predictives and which normally do not mix freely with other, non-predictive forms.

   • 2008, Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Routes to Language: Studies in Honor of Melissa Bowerman, page xiv:

     In contrast, English-speaking children appropriately differentiate if future predictives from when future predictives, a distinction relevant for English but not for, say, German.

2. (statistics) Simulated data generated from a statistical model, based on the estimates for the real data.
   • 2008, Siddhartha Chib, William Griffiths, Bayesian Econometrics, page 160:

     However, the posterior predictives combine two sources of information: what we might term the structural effect of WIC participation as well as an unobserved correlation between the errors of the participation and outcome equations.

   • 2018, Simon Farrell, Stephan Lewandowsky, Computational Modeling of Cognition and Behavior, page 308:

     Alternatively, we can use prior predictives to help define prior distributions.