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negative

/ˈnɛ(e)ɡəˌɾɪv/

noun

Meaning

  • Refusal or withholding of assents; prohibition, veto

  • A right of veto.

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

  • (grammar) A word that indicates negation.

  • A negative quantity.

  • : A rep performed with 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.

verb

Meaning

  • To refuse; to veto.

  • To contradict.

  • To disprove.

  • To make ineffective; to neutralize.

adjective

Meaning

  • Not positive nor neutral.

  • Of electrical charge of an electron and related particles

  • Of a number: less than zero

  • Denying a proposition.

  • Damaging; undesirable; unfavourable.

    "Customers didn’t like it: feedback was mostly negative."

  • Often used pejoratively: 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."

  • 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.

    "The nitro group is negative."

  • (New Age jargon) Often preceded by emotion, energy, feeling, or thought: to be avoided, bad, difficult, disagreeable, painful, potentially damaging, unpleasant, unwanted.

  • Characterized by the presence of features which do not support a hypothesis.

  • HIV negative

Synonyms

undesirable

interjection

Meaning

  • (signalling) An elaborate synonym for no.