negativeadj/ˈnɛɡ.ə.tɪv/

• 1

  Not positive or neutral; bad; undesirable; unfavourable.

  • The high exchange rate will have a negative effect on our profits.
  • Customers didn’t like it: feedback was mostly negative.
• 2

  mathematicssciencesOf a number: less than zero.

• 3

  climatologymathematicsmeteorologyOf a number: less than zero.

  • I was out in negative weather today.
• 4

  medicinesciencesOf a test result: not positive, not detected.

  • negative detection of.
• 5

  natural-sciencesphysical-sciencesphysicsOf electrical charge of an electron and related particles

• 6

  human-scienceslinguisticslogicDenying a proposition; negating a concept.

  • Marx had said that the negative freedom of the liberal bourgeois tradition would have no place in socialist society, as it only expressed the antagonistic character of society.
• 7

  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.
• 8

  Of or relating to a photographic image in which the colours of the original, and the relations of left and right, are reversed.

negativenoun/ˈnɛɡ.ə.tɪv/

• 1

  Refusal or withholding of assents; prohibition, veto

  • “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.
  • 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

  lawA right of veto.

  • 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.
  • The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign; […]
• 4

  artshobbieslifestyleAn image in which dark areas represent light ones, and the converse.

• 5

  grammarhuman-scienceslinguisticsA word that indicates negation.

  • "Why, she is one of those persons whom negatives seem invented to describe—I doubt whether she is worth one single bad quality."
• 6

  mathematicssciencesA negative quantity.

• 7

  hobbieslifestylesportsA 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.

negativeverb/ˈnɛɡ.ə.tɪv/

• 1

  To refuse; to veto.

  • Poppy earnestly begged to be allowed to go with Jasmine on the roof, but this the good lady negatived with horror.
  • "Never mind," said Cripps, "the dinner will set you right." The curate, foreboding the worst, followed them to the Sign of the Sixpence, where he had sufficient presence of mind to negative Cripps's order of steak-and-kidney pudding for three, and substitute a humble request for roast mutton.
• 2

  To contradict.

  • "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

  To disprove.

  • At one time an idea got abroad that the whole tale of her fortune had been a myth; […] but the boastings of various servants who declared they had seen her with “rolls on rolls” of banknotes […] negatived the truth of this statement.
  • "However, the fact that they need crystals negatives that idea...we must seek a material explanation."
• 4

  To make ineffective; to neutralize; to negate.

  • "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."
  • In the nature of things, much railway capital expenditure on stations and depots was in the immediate vicinity, if not in the heart, of towns, and extensions or remodellings, apart from being extremely costly, may be entirely negatived by the impossibility of securing the necessary land.

negativeintj/ˈnɛɡ.ə.tɪv/

• 1

  lawNo; nay.

  • "Negative Marcel. No IOC. Patient has been drinking heavily, we can give him nothing for pain."