A negative exponent is defined as the multiplicative inversemultiplicative inverseThe multiplicative inverse of 'a' is denoted by a-1 or 1/a. In other words, when the product of two numbers is 1, they are said to be multiplicative inverses of each other. The multiplicative inverse of a number is defined as the division of 1 by that number. of the base, raised to the power which is opposite to the given power. In simple words, we write the reciprocal of the number and then solve it like positive exponents. For example, (2/3)-2 can be written as (3/2)2.