Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, computer program-product, and system for generating predicate-weighted histograms in a database management system. Further, the methods, computer program-products and systems in accordance with the present invention generate histograms that are biased towards the predicate literals of the queries that are submitted to the database management system. The resulting histograms will improve query performance by generating histograms with greater resolution near predicate literals that represent the queries submitted to the database management system.