predicant

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

To begin with, the predicant was sulky because I had cut him short in his address, and a holy man in the sulks is a bad kind of animal to deal with.

From Swallow: a tale of the great trek by Haggard, Henry Rider

It may be remarked, not only from this example, but from general study, that the verb "to be" as a copula or predicant does not have any place in sign language.

From Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-1880, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 263-552 by Mallery, Garrick

With adjectives and nouns this verb is used as a predicant.

From On the Evolution of Language First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 1-16 by Powell, John Wesley

Luckily, the predicant took no notice of this incident, for he was thinking about himself as he was too prone to do.

From Swallow: a tale of the great trek by Haggard, Henry Rider

Again, adjectives are used as intransitive verbs, as in most Indian languages there is no verb to be used as a predicant or copula.

From On the Evolution of Language First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 1-16 by Powell, John Wesley