negative
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈnɛɡətɪv/
ipa: /ˈnɛɡətɪv/
ipa: /-ɾɪv/
ipa: /ˈneɡətɪv/
ipa: /-ɾɪv/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈnɛɡəʈɪv/
note: Indic
ipa: /nɪɡəˈʈɪv/
note: Indic
ipa: /nɛ~ɪˈɡeʈɪv/
Forms: form: negatives
form: -ve
form: −ve
Etymology: From Middle English negative, negatif, from Old French negatif, from Latin negātīvus (“that denies, negative”), from negāre (“to deny”); see negate.
Senses: examples: text: “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.
ref: 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 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):
glosses: Refusal or withholding of assents; prohibition, veto
glosses: An unfavorable point or characteristic.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1787, Luther Martin, cited in The Constitutional Convention Of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia Of America's Founding (2005), Volume 1, page 391
text: The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign; […]
ref: 1788, Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, no. 68
text: 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.
topics: law
glosses: A right of veto.
topics: arts
hobbies
lifestyle
photography
antonyms: positive#Noun
coordinate_terms: diapositive#Noun
glosses: An image in which dark areas represent light ones, and the converse.
examples: text: "Why, she is one of those persons whom negatives seem invented to describe—I doubt whether she is worth one single bad quality."
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 191:
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: A word that indicates negation.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: A negative quantity.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
weightlifting
glosses: 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.
glosses: The negative plate of a voltaic or electrolytic cell.
examples: text: You can’t prove a negative.
topics: human-sciences
logic
mathematics
philosophy
sciences
glosses: A statement that something didn’t happen or doesn’t exist.
Derived terms: connegative
double negative
false negative
internegative
multinegative
negatival
neg-raising
stereonegative