Inlogic, apredicate is a symbol that represents a property or a relation. For instance, in thefirst-order formula, the symbol is a predicate that applies to theindividual constant. Similarly, in the formula, the symbol is a predicate that applies to the individual constants and.
According toGottlob Frege, the meaning of a predicate is exactly a function from the domain of objects to thetruth values "true" and "false".
In thesemantics of logic, predicates are interpreted asrelations. For instance, in a standard semantics for first-order logic, the formula would be true on aninterpretation if the entities denoted by and stand in the relation denoted by. Since predicates arenon-logical symbols, they can denote different relations depending on the interpretation given to them. Whilefirst-order logic only includes predicates that apply to individual objects, other logics may allow predicates that apply to collections of objects defined by other predicates.
A predicate is a statement or mathematical assertion that contains variables, sometimes referred to as predicate variables, and may be true or false depending on those variables’ value or values.