as in prophetic
being a sign of a later course of events
unfortunately, the stock market crash of 1929 turned out to be a predictive event, for the next decade was consumed by the Great Depression
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Recent Examples of predictive
More than 25 selective datasets are used with predictive analytics not available anywhere else to help shape your postseason strategy.
—
Christian Romo, Freep.com, 17 Jan. 2026
Monte Carlo – predictive modeling for computational advantages Paul Romano, a computational scientist at Argonne who began developing OpenMC as an MIT graduate student, explains that the software allows teams to demonstrate the advantages of new designs computationally before hardware is built.
—Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 16 Jan. 2026
Last year, the BAFTAs were quite predictive of the Oscars.
—Anne Thompson, IndieWire, 16 Jan. 2026
Many are regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency, but not all, according to the researchers, who trained a predictive machine learning model on the toxicity data of more than 200 chemicals.
—Rachyl Jones, semafor.com, 16 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for predictive
Christian Romo, Freep.com, 17 Jan. 2026
Monte Carlo – predictive modeling for computational advantages Paul Romano, a computational scientist at Argonne who began developing OpenMC as an MIT graduate student, explains that the software allows teams to demonstrate the advantages of new designs computationally before hardware is built.
—Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 16 Jan. 2026
Last year, the BAFTAs were quite predictive of the Oscars.
—Anne Thompson, IndieWire, 16 Jan. 2026
Many are regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency, but not all, according to the researchers, who trained a predictive machine learning model on the toxicity data of more than 200 chemicals.
—Rachyl Jones, semafor.com, 16 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for predictive
Recent Examples of Synonyms for predictive
Adjective
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Tony Romo got a little prophetic while trolling Swifties in 2023.—
Shania Russell,
Entertainment Weekly,
30 Jan. 2026
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People see ghosts, have visions, and suffer prophetic dreams.—
Joshua Rothman,
New Yorker,
23 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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One of them has fashioned a sinister balaclava out of his cap and neck gaiter.—
Jessica Winter,
New Yorker,
31 Jan. 2026
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While the visual effect can be startling, there is nothing sinister at play.—
Ahmad Bajjey,
CBS News,
30 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Predictive.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/predictive. Accessed 9 Feb. 2026.
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