predominate
Americanverb (used without object)
-
predominates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
predominated,
past participle, past
-
predominating
present participle
-
to be the stronger or leading element or force.
-
to have numerical superiority or advantage.
The radicals predominate in the new legislature.
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to surpass others in authority or influence; be preeminent.
He predominated in the political scene.
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to have or exert controlling power (often followed byover ).
Good sense predominated over the impulse to fight.
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to appear more noticeable or imposing than something else.
Blues and greens predominated in the painting.
verb (used with object)
-
predominates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
predominated,
past participle, past
-
predominating
present participle
verb
-
to have power, influence, or control
-
(intr) to prevail or preponderate
-
rare (tr) to dominate or have control over
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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predominatesimple
-
predominatessimple
-
have predominatedperfect
-
has predominatedperfect
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am predominatingprogressive
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are predominatingprogressive
-
is predominatingprogressive
-
have been predominatingperfect progressive
-
has been predominatingperfect progressive
Past
-
predominatedsimple
-
had predominatedperfect
-
was predominatingprogressive
-
were predominatingprogressive
-
had been predominatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of predominate
1585–95; < Medieval Latin praedominātus, past participle of praedominārī to predominate. See pre-, dominate
Explanation
Of all the social networks, one predominates. Facebook is by far the biggest and most influential. When someone or something predominates, it's the largest or most powerful of all. You'll probably already have noticed that the verb "dominate" makes up a good part of predominate, and in fact these are very similar words. To predominate means to be the biggest or most plentiful or most powerful of all. Of course, you want to make sure that you're talking about like things when you're using predominate. In the debate about guns, the most logical voices are rarely the ones that predominate.
Vocabulary lists containing predominate
"The Gift of the Magi"
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"Bonne Annee," Vocabulary from the personal essay
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George Washington's Farewell Address (1796)
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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.
See Examples For:
While car imagery doesn’t predominate on @map_pointz, the scenes that Rosales was involved in couldn’t have happened without automobiles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Nigeria's population of more than 230 million people is roughly evenly divided among Christians, who predominate in the south, and Muslims, who are mostly in the north.
From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2026
Nigeria has a population of some 237 million people, split roughly between Muslims, who predominate in the north of the country, and Christians.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2025
But those are categories in which unions already predominate.
From Slate ● Jul. 2, 2025
Even if the analysis is limited to felonies—thus excluding extremely minor crimes and misdemeanors—nonviolent offenses predominate.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
This would be followed by a “substitution” phase where farming develops alongside foraging in the hunter-gatherer area, and eventually a “consolidation” phase, when farming predominates.
From Science Daily ● May 30, 2026
“We often see a transition from influenza A, which predominates early on, to influenza B, which is more common in late February into March,” says Kuritzkes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 12, 2026
In Yoruba culture, which predominates in the south-west of the country, twins are a blessing and their names are predestined.
From BBC ● May 9, 2024
The result is an architecture that’s intended to displace the carbon-heavy cinder-block design that predominates in fast-growing African cities, modern and vernacular at the same time.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2023
The variety in salads may consist of one fruit salad, one vegetable salad and one salad in which protein predominates, such as cottage cheese, meat or fish.
From Quantity Cookery Menu Planning and Cooking for Large Numbers by Lenore Richards
Skepticism predominated at the time, with Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott fearing OpenAI might "storm off to Amazon in a huff."
From Barron's ● May 11, 2026
“Next, looking to the record, we find virtually no evidence that race predominated in the voters’ enactment of the Proposition 50 Map.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026
Though it may appear that optimism predominated throughout 2025, there were significant swings in sentiment.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 6, 2026
Tom Vilsack said the agency was adopting an “ecologically-driven” approach to older forests — an arena where logging interests have historically predominated.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 19, 2023
He stopped; his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Interpretations of Islamic law vary widely across the Muslim world, with more moderate strains predominating.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 3, 2021
Now, with anxiety over what happens predominating, “That sort of thing is all gone.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2021
“Keeping your options open” is not usually the predominating theme of a happy wedding day.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2020
An opening scene in a secretarial pool has female employees chanting in unison—“I enclose an invoice for our services,” “I like your nails”—as the orchestra chatters and pulses around them, with high winds predominating.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 29, 2018
In the background was the reason the photographer wanted us outside—the family laundry with, of course, the diapers predominating.
From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
