English edit

Etymology edit

1550s; borrowed from Middle French sequent, from Old French sequent, itself borrowed from Latin sequentem, present participle of sequī (to follow).[1]

Pronunciation edit

Adjective edit

sequent (comparative more sequent, superlative most sequent)

  1. (obsolete) That comes after in time or order; subsequent.
    • 1860, James Thomson (B.V.), Two Sonnets[1]:
      Why are your songs all wild and bitter sad
      As funeral dirges with the orphans' cries?
      Each night since first the world was made hath had
      A sequent day to laugh it down the skies.
  2. (now rare) That follows on as a result, conclusion etc.; consequent to, on, upon.
    • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
      But let my Triall, be mine owne Confession: / Immediate sentence then, and sequent death, / Is all the grace I beg.
    • 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew:
      Maisie found herself clutched to her mother's breast and passionately sobbed and shrieked over, made the subject of a demonstration evidently sequent to some sharp passage just enacted.
  3. Recurring in succession or as a series; successive, consecutive.

Related terms edit

Translations edit

Noun edit

sequent (plural sequents)

  1. Something that follows in a given sequence.
    • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.30:
      The One is somewhat shadowy. It is sometimes called God, sometimes the Good; it transcends Being, which is the first sequent upon the One.
  2. (logic) A disjunctive set of logical formulae which is partitioned into two subsets; the first subset, called the antecedent, consists of formulae which are valuated as false, and the second subset, called the succedent, consists of formulae which are valuated as true.[2] (The set is written without set brackets and the separation between the two subsets is denoted by a turnstile symbol, which may be read "give(s)".)
    A sequent   could be interpreted to correspond to an Existential Graph, whose expression in Existential Graph Interchange Format would be
    ~[(a) (b) ~[(c)] ~[(d)]], which in ordinary language could be expressed as "
    a and b give c or d".
  3. (obsolete) A follower.
    • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
      Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried.
  4. (mathematics) A sequential calculus

Derived terms edit

Related terms edit

Translations edit

References edit

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024), “sequent”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
  2. ^ logicinaction.org, Chapter 8

Further reading edit