English
negative
Etymology

From Middle English negative, negatif, from Old French negatif, from Latin negātīvus, from negāre; see negate.

Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈnɛɡətɪv/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈnɛɡətɪv/, /-ɾɪv/
  • (Canada) IPA: /ˈnɛ(e)ɡəˌɾɪv/
Adjective

negative

  1. Not positive nor neutral.
    • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC ↗, page 191 ↗:
      "Why, she is one of those persons whom negatives seem invented to describe—I doubt whether she is worth one single bad quality."
  2. (physics) Of electrical charge of an electron and related particles [from the 18th c.]
  3. (mathematics) Of a number: less than zero
    Antonyms: nonnegative
    1. (weather) Less than zero degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit.
      I was out in negative weather today.
  4. (linguistics, logic) Denying a proposition.
    Antonyms: affirmative
  5. Damaging; undesirable; unfavourable.
    The high exchange rate will have a negative effect on our profits.
    Customers didn’t like it: feedback was mostly negative.
  6. (often used pejoratively) Pessimistic; not tending to see the bright side of things.
    I don’t like to hang around him very much because he can be so negative about his petty problems.
  7. Of or relating to a photographic image in which the colours of the original, and the relations of left and right, are reversed.
  8. (chemistry) Metalloidal, nonmetallic; contrasted with positive or basic.
    The nitro group is negative.
  9. (New Age jargon, pejorative) Often preceded by emotion, energy, feeling, or thought: to be avoided, bad, difficult, disagreeable, painful, potentially damaging, unpleasant, unwanted.
    • 2011, Joe Vitale, The Key: the missing secret for attracting anything you want, Body, Mind & Spirit,
      The threat of negative feelings may seem very real, but they are nothing more than mirages... Allow the unwanted feelings to evaporate and dissolve as the mirages that they are.
  10. Characterized by the presence of features which do not support a hypothesis.
  11. (slang) HIV negative.
    • quoted in 2013, William I. Johnston, HIV-Negative: How the Uninfected Are Affected by AIDS (page 145)
      We certainly told him at that time that I was negative. We talked about transmission. We told him we don't do anything that would cause me to become positive.
  12. (slang) COVID-19 negative.
  13. (hyperbolic) No, not any, zero.
Synonyms Antonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

negative (plural negatives)

  1. Refusal or withholding of assents; prohibition, veto [from 15th c.]
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC ↗:
      “Upon my word, I can’t eat a morsel,” answered the lady […] There is indeed in perfect beauty a power which none almost can withstand; for my landlady, though she was not pleased at the negative given to the supper, declared she had never seen so lovely a creature.
    • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. XV, Practical — Devotional”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC ↗, book II (The Ancient Monk):
      Geoffrey Riddell Bishop of Ely […] made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certain edifices going on at Glemsford. The Abbot, a great builder himself, disliked the request; could not however give it a negative.
  2. An unfavorable point or characteristic.
  3. (law) A right of veto.
    • 1787, Luther Martin, cited in The Constitutional Convention Of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia Of America's Founding (2005), Volume 1, page 391 ↗
      And as to the Constitutionality of laws, that point will come before the Judges in their proper official character. In this character they have a negative on the laws.
    • 1788, Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, no. 68
      The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign; […]
    • 1983, INS v. Chadha, Opinion of the Court
      In the convention there does not seem to have been much diversity of opinion on the subject of the propriety of giving to the president a negative on the laws.
  4. (photography) An image in which dark areas represent light ones, and the converse. [from 19th c.]
    Antonyms: positive#Noun
    Coordinate term: diapositive
  5. (grammar) A word that indicates negation.
  6. (mathematics) A negative quantity.
  7. (weightlifting) A repetition performed with a weight in which the muscle begins at maximum contraction and is slowly extended; a movement performed using only the eccentric phase of muscle movement.
  8. The negative plate of a voltaic or electrolytic cell.
  9. (logic) A statement that something didn’t happen or doesn’t exist.
    You can’t prove a negative.
Translations Translations Translations Verb

negative (negatives, present participle negativing; simple past and past participle negatived)

  1. (transitive) To refuse; to veto.
    • 1887, L. T. Meade, chapter XVIII, in The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls‎:
      Poppy earnestly begged to be allowed to go with Jasmine on the roof, but this the good lady negatived with horror.
  2. (transitive) To contradict.
    • 1892, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXXIII, in Tess of the d'Urbervilles‎:
      "A comely maid, that," said the other.
      "True, comely enough. But unless I make a great mistake—" And he negatived the remainder of the definition forthwith.
  3. (transitive) To disprove.
  4. (transitive) To make ineffective; to neutralize, to negate.
    • 1918 May 9, Lytton Strachey, “[Florence Nightingale.] Chapter III”, in Eminent Victorians: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, General Gordon (Library of English Literature; LEL 11347), London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC ↗, page 162 ↗:
      "The War Office," said Miss Nightingale, "is a very slow office, an enormously expensive office, and one in which the Minister's intentions can be entirely negatived by all his sub-departments, and those of each of the sub-departments by every other."
    • 1959, Flavius Josephus, chapter 5, in G. A. Williamson, transl., The Jewish War, Penguin, published 1970, page 98:
      Yet he made his largesse daily more lavish, as he saw the king negativing his efforts by taking care of the orphans and showing his remorse for the murder of his sons by his tenderness towards their little ones.
Interjection
  1. (law, signalling) No; nay.
Antonyms

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