predispose
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to give an inclination or tendency to beforehand; make susceptible.
Genetic factors may predispose human beings to certain metabolic diseases.
- Synonyms:
- prepare, prearrange
-
to render subject, susceptible, or liable.
The evidence predisposes him to public censure.
-
to dispose beforehand.
-
Archaic. to dispose of beforehand, as in a will, legacy, or the like.
verb (used without object)
verb
-
to incline or make (someone) susceptible to something beforehand
-
law to dispose of (property, etc) beforehand; bequeath
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
predisposesimple
-
predisposessimple
-
have predisposedperfect
-
has predisposedperfect
-
am predisposingprogressive
-
are predisposingprogressive
-
is predisposingprogressive
-
have been predisposingperfect progressive
-
has been predisposingperfect progressive
Past
-
predisposedsimple
-
had predisposedperfect
-
was predisposingprogressive
-
were predisposingprogressive
-
had been predisposingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of predispose
Explanation
Predispose means to have a tendency toward something. Some people believe that just being born in Canada will predispose you to love ice hockey. Many situations or events can predispose you to have a particular reaction, opinion, or feeling. Being bitten by a dog as a child could predispose you to having a fear of dogs. Having ancestors with great athletic ability might predispose you to enjoy running. If you want to predispose your father to liking your new boyfriend, be sure to tell him about volunteering at the food bank and leave out the bits about his arrest and dropping out of school.
Vocabulary lists containing predispose
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The Gene
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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:
Recognizing this, some oncologists have begun administering drugs with restraint rather than abandon, aiming to keep the cancer in check rather than creating conditions that predispose to the rapid growth of resistant cells.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
"The whole team undertakes a standardized warm-up that addresses a number of physical concerns that predispose our female athletes to ACLs," she said.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2025
In fact, his real interest was in “all aspects of the environment in which infection transmission occurs and the environmental conditions that predispose to all manner of human disease,” as infectious disease researchers write.
From Salon ● Feb. 21, 2025
Nothing in her environment would predispose her to cancer, except for being in close proximity to the fires.
From Slate ● Jan. 16, 2025
Attitudes such as these certainly predispose one to innumeracy.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Nor does it hurt that the extraordinary popularity of the Harry Potter movies predisposes much of the audience to sympathy and affection.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 13, 2026
Studies show that adding sugar to any food for babies or small children predisposes them to having a sweet tooth.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2024
This predisposes them to developing the disease but in itself is not symptomatic.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 22, 2024
Perhaps spending a premium to see a movie in person, and planning ahead, predisposes people to savor the experience.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 1, 2023
Prolonged deprivation of food predisposes to hallucinations, and it would seem that, under this condition, a large proportion of otherwise healthy persons become liable to them, especially to auditory hallucinations. d.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 8 "Haller, Albrecht" to "Harmonium" by Various
I have no predisposed notion on what goes into the inspection report.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 8, 2025
Wojcicki said inquiries poured into 23andMe in 2015 after actor Angelina Jolie disclosed that she’d undergone a precautionary double mastectomy upon learning she carried a gene that predisposed her to breast cancer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2025
And to be fair, that’s not a bad courtroom strategy against an opponent who is almost pathologically predisposed to putting his foot in his mouth.
From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2025
"The US market is not only huge, but also more predisposed to taking big shots," Mustafa Suleyman, who co-founded Google DeepMind and has just joined Microsoft, told the BBC.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2024
“It was a field test. The military project wasn’t just about programming people so they could camouflage themselves. It was also about making people who were genetically predisposed to be cool under pressure.”
From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste
“Inadequate nutrition, particularly vitamin A deficiency, can impair the lining of the digestive tract, predisposing birds to inflammation and secondary illness.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 20, 2026
Fifteen potentially harmful and predisposing variants in the same RNF207 and PRKAA2 genes, which had been identified in dogs, were discovered in humans.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2023
But a recent study suggested that the risk of so-called long COVID-19 is highest among people with one of four predisposing factors, including Type 2 diabetes and the presence of autoantibodies.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 4, 2022
A growing number of scientists suggest that the changes in the Arctic will have an impact on the globe’s far more populous mid-latitudes by predisposing the atmosphere to extreme weather events.
From Washington Post ● May 10, 2017
Was there anything about the Chinese environment predisposing toward Confucian philosophy and cultural conservatism, which may also have profoundly affected history?
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
