negative
adjective · noun · verb
Simple meaning
Not positive or neutral.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nehguhtivSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnɛɡətɪv
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Not positive or neutral; bad; undesirable; unfavourable.
mathematics
Of a number: less than zero.
medicine
Of a test result: not positive, not detected.
often used pejoratively
Pessimistic; not tending to see the bright side of things.
Characterized by the presence of features which do not support a hypothesis.
Of or relating to a photographic image in which the colours of the original, and the relations of left and right, are reversed.
noun
Refusal or withholding of assents; prohibition, veto
An unfavorable point or characteristic.
The negative plate of a voltaic or electrolytic cell.
verb
transitive
To refuse; to veto.
transitive
To contradict.
transitive
To disprove.
transitive
To make ineffective; to neutralize; to negate.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of a number: less than zero.
Used this way, negative is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a mathematical use: it is defined precisely and belongs to working with figures and calculations rather than to ordinary conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Mathematics
- Geometry
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use negative
- “A negative outlook on life.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Evidence proving that you are not who you say you are not.
The pole of a magnet that points toward the south when the magnet is suspended freely.
An elementary particle with a negative charge and a half-life of 2 microsecond.
The terminal of a battery that is connected to the negative plate.
A reinforcing stimulus whose removal serves to decrease the likelihood of the response that produced it.
A reinforcing stimulus whose removal serves to decrease the likelihood of the response that produced it.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A negative statement.
The character of the negative electric pole.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: refusal or withholding of assents
Antonyms
Sense: not positive or neutral
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.