Pronunciations (4)
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/ˈnɛɡ.ə.tɪv/
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ˈnɛɡətɪv
Pronunciation notes
- GB
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ˈnɛɡətɪv
Pronunciation notes
- US
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ˈnɛ(e)ɡəˌɾɪv
Pronunciation notes
- CA
Adjective
Not positive or neutral; bad; undesirable; unfavourable.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The high exchange rate will have a negative effect on our profits.
Customers didn’t like it: feedback was mostly negative.
Of a number: less than zero.
- Antonyms
- Broader terms
Of a number: less than zero. Less than zero degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit.
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I was out in negative weather today.
Of a test result: not positive, not detected.
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negative detection of.
Of electrical charge of an electron and related particles
Denying a proposition; negating a concept.
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More examples (1)
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.
Pessimistic; not tending to see the bright side of things.
Usage- often
- used pejoratively
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I don’t like to hang around him very much because he can be so negative about his petty problems.
Of or relating to a photographic image in which the colours of the original, and the relations of left and right, are reversed.
Metalloidal, nonmetallic; contrasted with positive or basic.
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The nitro group is negative.
Often preceded by emotion, energy, feeling, or thought: to be avoided, bad, difficult, disagreeable, painful, potentially damaging, unpleasant, unwanted.
Usage- New-Age
- Derogatory
- jargon
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More examples (3)
Negative feelings can be worked through and their energy converted into positive energy... In crisis, normal patterns of self-organization fail, resulting in anxiety (negative energy).
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.
If you have been badly affected by negative energy a salt bath is wonderful for clearing and cleansing yourself... Salt attracts negative energy and will draw it away from you.
Characterized by the presence of features which do not support a hypothesis.
HIV negative.
Usage- Slang
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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.
COVID-19 negative.
Usage- Slang
No, not any, zero.
Usage- excessive
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The negative contact we get inside here [prison] is enough to make you even more bitter and further alienated from society and ourselves.
The hell? I wish I could follow you on that, but it makes negative sense.
Noun
Refusal or withholding of assents; prohibition, veto
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More examples (2)
“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.
An unfavorable point or characteristic.
A right of veto.
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More examples (1)
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; […]
More examples (1)
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.
An image in which dark areas represent light ones, and the converse.
- Antonyms
A word that indicates negation.
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"Why, she is one of those persons whom negatives seem invented to describe—I doubt whether she is worth one single bad quality."
A negative quantity.
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.
The negative plate of a voltaic or electrolytic cell.
A statement that something didn’t happen or doesn’t exist.
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You can’t prove a negative.
Verb
To refuse; to veto.
Usage- Transitive
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Poppy earnestly begged to be allowed to go with Jasmine on the roof, but this the good lady negatived with horror.
More examples (1)
"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.
And being of warm blood he had not the phlegm tacitly to negative any proposition by unresponsive inaction.
To contradict.
Usage- Transitive
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"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.
To disprove.
Usage- Transitive
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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."
To make ineffective; to neutralize; to negate.
Usage- Transitive
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"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.
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.
More examples (2)
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.
While the diesel-hydraulic system has been failing to live up to its early promise, development in other directions has negatived some of the advantages which prompted its trial.
Interjection
No; nay.
- Examples
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"Negative Marcel. No IOC. Patient has been drinking heavily, we can give him nothing for pain."
Adjective
characterized by or displaying negation or denial or opposition or resistance; having no positive features
- Examples
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a negative outlook on life
a colorless negative personality
More examples (2)
a negative evaluation
a negative reaction to an advertising campaign
expressing or consisting of a negation or refusal or denial
- Antonyms
having the quality of something harmful or unpleasant
- Examples
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ran a negative campaign
delinquents retarded by their negative outlook on life
not indicating the presence of microorganisms or disease or a specific condition
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
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the HIV test was negative
reckoned in a direction opposite to that regarded as positive
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negative interest rates
less than zero
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a negative number
designed or tending to discredit, especially without positive or helpful suggestions
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negative criticism
having a negative charge
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electrons are negative
involving disadvantage or harm
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minus (or negative) factors
Noun
a reply of denial
- Antonyms
- Broader terms
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he answered in the negative
a piece of photographic film showing an image with light and shade or colors reversed
- Broader terms
Verb
vote against; refuse to endorse; refuse to assent
- Broader terms
- Examples
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The President vetoed the bill