negative

1. 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. 2

   Of a number: less than zero.

3. 3

   Of a number: less than zero.; Less than zero degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit.

   • I was out in negative weather today.
4. 4

   Of a test result: not positive, not detected.

   • negative detection of.
5. 5

   Of electrical charge of an electron and related particles

6. 6

   Denying 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. 7

   Pessimistic; not tending to see the bright side of things.often

   • I don’t like to hang around him very much because he can be so negative about his petty problems.
8. 8

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

9. 9

   Metalloidal, nonmetallic; contrasted with positive or basic.

   • The nitro group is negative.
10. 10

    Often preceded by emotion, energy, feeling, or thought: to be avoided, bad, difficult, disagreeable, painful, potentially damaging, unpleasant, unwanted.New-Agederogatoryjargon

    • 2011, Joe Vitale, The Key: the missing secret for attracting anything you want, Body, Mind & Spirit, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=hf5qEW9n_fsC&pg=PT109&dq=positive+feelings&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MkX-T8PQCo6KmQXjr4GhBQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q

ant. positive

1. 1

   Refusal or withholding of assents; prohibition, veto

   • 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. 2

   An unfavorable point or characteristic.

3. 3

   A 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. 4

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

   • And to unravel the question of why I was doing this, I develop the negative, inspect the shadows, search for hidden clues.
5. 5

   A 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. 6

   A negative quantity.

7. 7

   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. 8

   The negative plate of a voltaic or electrolytic cell.

9. 9

   A statement that something didn’t happen or doesn’t exist.

   • You can’t prove a negative.

1. 1

   To refuse; to veto.transitive

   • Poppy earnestly begged to be allowed to go with Jasmine on the roof, but this the good lady negatived with horror.
   • And being of warm blood he had not the phlegm tacitly to negative any proposition by unresponsive inaction.
2. 2

   To contradict.transitive

   • "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. 3

   To disprove.transitive

   • 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. 4

   To make ineffective; to neutralize; to negate.transitive

   • He was coatless and his thumbs were hooked negligently in a leather belt, thereby negativing a tendency to balance himself on an inclined plane backwards.
   • 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.

1. 1

   No; nay.

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

ant. affirmative