Definition of "negative"

"Why, she is one of those persons whom negatives seem invented to describe—I doubt whether she is worth one single bad quality."

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 191

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).

2009, Christopher Johns, Becoming a Reflective Practitioner, John Wiley & Sons, page 15

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.

2011, Joe Vitale, The Key: the missing secret for attracting anything you want, Body, Mind & Spirit

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.

2011, Anne Jones, Healing Negative Energies, Hachette, page 118

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.

quoted in 2013, William I. Johnston, HIV-Negative: How the Uninfected Are Affected by AIDS (page 145)

The hell? I wish I could follow you on that, but it makes negative sense.

2002 September 7, Jef, “MST3K DVD Collection One”, in rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc‎ (Usenet)

“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.

1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […]

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.

1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. XV, Practical — Devotional”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, book II (The Ancient Monk)

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.

1787, Luther Martin, cited in The Constitutional Convention Of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia Of America's Founding (2005), Volume 1, page 391

The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign; […]

1788, Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, no. 68

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.

1983, INS v. Chadha, Opinion of the Court

Poppy earnestly begged to be allowed to go with Jasmine on the roof, but this the good lady negatived with horror.

1887, L. T. Meade, chapter XVIII, in The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls‎

And being of warm blood he had not the phlegm tacitly to negative any proposition by unresponsive inaction.

1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd‎, London: Constable & Co.

"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.

1892, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXXIII, in Tess of the d'Urbervilles‎

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.

1882, J. H. Riddell, “Old Mrs Jones”, in The Collected Ghost Stories of Mrs. J. H. Riddell‎, Dover, published 1977, page 192

"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."

1918 May 9, Lytton Strachey, “[Florence Nightingale.] Chapter III”, in Eminent Victorians: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, General Gordon (Library of English Literature; LEL 11347), London: Chatto & Windus, page 162

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.

1945 March and April, T. F. Cameron, “New Works Procedure”, in Railway Magazine, page 71

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.

1959, Flavius Josephus, chapter 5, in G. A. Williamson, transl., The Jewish War, Penguin, published 1970, page 98

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.

1963 January, G. Freeman Allen, “Why B.R. are dropping high-power diesel-hydraulics”, in Modern Railways, page 25

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

1980, Richard Louis Newmann, Siege of Orbitor, page xxiv. 93