The terminology of "determinables and determinates" existed in scholastic philosophy, but the modern use of these terms originated with the Cambridge (U.K.) philosopher and logician W. E. Johnson, who revived the terminology in his Logic (1921). Johnson said, "I propose to call such terms as colour and shape determinables in relation to such terms as red or circular which will be called determinates." Some other determinables are size, weight, age, number, and texture. The terminology has since passed into philosophical currency and is now used to mark both the relation between determinate and determinable qualities and the relation between the corresponding words.

The chief features of this relation that Johnson and his successors have found interesting are:

1. It is logically distinct from the relation of genus to species. The denotation of a species term is marked off within the denotation of a genus term...