means In grammar, the part of a sentence that says something about the subject — usually the verb and everything that goes with it; more broadly, to predicate is to assert or base one thing upon another.

from From Latin praedicare, "to proclaim, declare publicly," built from prae- "before, in front" and dicare "to make known, proclaim" (a relative of dicere, "to say"). The original sense was almost theatrical — to announce something out loud to a crowd — and that public declaring carried into church Latin, where praedicare meant to preach. Logic and grammar later borrowed it for the calmer act of asserting something about a subject; the same root, fittingly, also gives us "preach."