What is a feature in machine learning?

A feature (also called a predictor or independent variable) is a measurable property of the data used as input to a model. For a house price prediction model, features might include square footage, number of bedrooms, and location. Feature engineering is the process of selecting, transforming, and creating features to improve model performance. Good features that correlate with the target variable are essential — "garbage in, garbage out" is a fundamental ML principle.