predictive

adjective

pre·​dic·​tive pri-ˈdik-tiv 

1

: of, relating to, or usable or valuable for prediction

predictive medical factors

2

: based on or generated by using methods of prediction

predictive models

predictive text

Usually predictive policing refers to feeding reams of city data into a computer and dispatching extra officers to areas that are deemed to be at high risk of future crime.

—Leon Neyfakh

predictively adverb

Like an astrological chart, it can be made to fit any case, and it works better retrospectively than predictively.

—Carol Tavris

Synonyms of predictive

• prophetic
• sinister

Examples of predictive in a Sentence

unfortunately, the stock market crash of 1929 turned out to be a predictive event, for the next decade was consumed by the Great Depression

Recent Examples on the Web

That shift moves organizations from reactive to predictive operations. —Nitin Rakesh, Forbes.com, 26 May 2026

The article attributed this to timely care driven by an early warning system, which uses predictive analytics to identify at-risk patients, and improving infection control. —Jessica Bartlett — Boston Globe, STAT, 21 May 2026

Key demonstrations include the ″⁣Network Digital Twin″⁣ powered by Spanner Graph and BigQuery, which allows operators like MasOrange and Deutsche Telekom to use autonomous agents for real-time root-cause analysis and predictive network self-healing. —Matthew Chin, CNBC, 19 May 2026

The predictive model’s accuracy improved significantly between phases, rising from 70.7% to 83.1% precision, with the ROC Index—a standard measure of model reliability—climbing from 89.8% to 91.7%. —Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 14 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1637, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for predictive

• addictive
• constrictive
• restrictive
• vindictive
• magnetostrictive