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Negative   /nˈɛgətɪv/   Listen
Negative

adjective
1.
Characterized by or displaying negation or denial or opposition or resistance; having no positive features.  "A colorless negative personality" , "A negative evaluation" , "A negative reaction to an advertising campaign"
2.
Expressing or consisting of a negation or refusal or denial.
3.
Having the quality of something harmful or unpleasant.  "Delinquents retarded by their negative outlook on life"
4.
Not indicating the presence of microorganisms or disease or a specific condition.  Synonym: disconfirming.
5.
Reckoned in a direction opposite to that regarded as positive.
6.
Less than zero.
7.
Designed or tending to discredit, especially without positive or helpful suggestions.  Synonym: damaging.
8.
Having a negative charge.  Synonyms: electronegative, negatively charged.
9.
Involving disadvantage or harm.  Synonym: minus.



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"Negative" Quotes from Famous Books



... Breton made a negative gesture. "Monsieur," timidly, "I do not want money, and I could never grow accustomed to a new master. I was born at the chateau in Perigny. My mother was your nurse and she loved you. I know your ways so well, Monsieur Paul. Can I not accompany you to Quebec? I ask no wages; ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... quieted the fears of the West and Northwest, destroyed the hopes of the secession element in Kentucky, renewed the drooping spirits of the East Tennesseans, and demoralized the disunionists in Middle Tennessee; yet it was a negative victory so far as concerned the result on the battle-field. Rosecrans seems to have planned the battle with the idea that the enemy would continue passive, remain entirely on the defensive, and that it was necessary only to push forward our left in order to force the evacuation of Murfreesboro'; ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... bottom of this, as of all the disputes that led to the Revolution, lay the ultimate question whether Americans were bound to yield obedience to laws which they had no share in making. This question, and the spirit that answered it flatly and doggedly in the negative, were heard like an undertone pervading all the arguments in Otis's wonderful speech, and it was because of this that the young lawyer John Adams, who was present, afterward declared that on that day "the ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... one of the camera men to take a 'still' of the hermit, develop it for us, and send the negative to Ben. He and Uncle Jabez must remember how that traveling ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... martyred for their respective principles. These militant believers have been keenly conscious that they had enemies; but their enemies were strangers to them, whom they could think of merely as such, regarding them as blank negative forces, hateful black devils, whose existence might make life difficult but could not confuse the ideal of life. No one sought to understand these enemies of his, nor even to conciliate them, unless under compulsion ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... to be true that an enemy to the welfare of library books is found in the librarian himself, or in any of his assistants, yet there have been those employed in the care of books who have abused their positions and the volumes entrusted to their charge, not only by neglect of care, (which is a negative injury) but by positive and continual ill treatment. This may arise from ignorance of better methods, but ignorance is a poor excuse for one credited with the intelligence of a librarian. In some libraries, books are treated with ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... the legislature late in February, and was sent to the Council of Revision. At that time the chancellor and the judges of the Supreme Court formed a Council of Revision, and had a qualified negative on all bills. If they considered a bill unconstitutional, they returned it to the house in which it originated, with their objections; after which, if it received the vote of two thirds of both houses, it became a law. This bill ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... a short time that afternoon, Dr. Grey had spoken of the dangerous condition of his patient, and asked the governess if she had ever seen or known Mrs. Gerome. Without hesitation, Edith Dexter quietly replied in the negative. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... States of America stunted and practically uneducated because of unregulated industrialism. These children, ill-fed, ill-trained mentally benighted, since they are alive and active, since they are an active and positive and not a negative evil, are even more ominous in the American outlook than those five and sixty million of good race and sound upbringing who will now never ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... they were proud of their Jewish heritage; of genuine interest in religion, however, they had little. This secular priestly party was called the Sadducees, probably from Zadok, the high-priest in Solomon's time. What theology the Sadducees had was for the most part reactionary and negative. They were opposed to the more earnest spirit and new thought of the scribes, and naturally produced some champions who argued for their theological position; but the mass of them cared ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... Richmond, and these petitions occasioned considerable debate in both Houses. Several motions were grounded on these petitions, but to those proposed by the Lords and gentlemen in the opposition, were determined in the negative, and others to exculpate the Government in this business were resolved in the affirmative. It appeared upon inquiry, that the American prisoners were allowed a half pound of bread less per day than the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... at the panel of the door with the hilt of his sword, and Denis heard him breathing heavily as if after some great exertion; but there was no reply, and he tapped again, with the same negative result. Then with an ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... run smooth." Certainly not. Why should it? If it did we should doubt whether the love were true. Our own private belief is that the course of true love is always uncommonly rough, but collective human wisdom has seen fit to put the idea in the negative form. ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... Dr. Pillbot broke into his thoughts insistently, "is purely negative, Professor! How can you know there are no beings in the fourth dimension, unless you actually enter this realm, ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer

... the enemy of his father and mother did not thrive on the spoils of his oppression could have yielded Shamus any consolation in his lot, he had long ago become aware of circumstances calculated to give this negative comfort. His maternal uncle enjoyed, indeed, his newly acquired property only a few years after it came into his possession. Partly on account of his cruelty to his relations, partly from a meanness and vulgarity of character, which soon displayed itself in his novel situation, and ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... negative, and after another momentary scrutiny, Dr. Wilkinson asked a few concluding questions, and then unhesitatingly declared him a ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... also. They have no strength, and you must keep adding them more and more to other colors to get them to do their work. All these things are bothersome. They make you give more attention to the pigments while working than you ought to, and when all is done, your picture is weak and negative in color. ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... carry the tent or send it up by the camp wagon?" Roy Blakeley asked, as he and the others crowded each other off the train at Catskill Landing. "Answer in the positive or negative." ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... point, jamais, plus, guere, rien, personne, pas un, que, aucun, nul, ni.-Order of negative particles with infinitive.—Omission of pas after savoir, pouvoir, cesser, oser.—Que introducing oui, non, etc., after verbs of saying, thinking and the like.—Idioms: aller chercher, envoyer chercher, vouloir ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann

... the only possible solution; and I know that several similar instances have been recorded. It is like the negative of a common photograph, brought out by a dark background; and do you notice the figures are invisible at certain angles? It is very evident the storm came up during the altercation that night, and electricity ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... connexion. A letter from Keats has been published showing that at one time he expected to meet Moore personally (see p. 45). Whether he did so or not I cannot say for certain, but I apprehend not: the published Diary of Moore, of about the same date, suggests the negative. ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... flourish on the pavement, where the ostler comes to wash his carriages, and where the barber shaves the poodle of the house. Visitors to the Albergo del Pozzo are invariably asked if they have seen the Museo; and when they answer in the negative, they are conducted with some ceremony to a large room on the ground-floor of the inn, looking out upon the courtyard and the fig-tree. It was here that I gained the acquaintance of Signor Folcioni, and became possessor of an object that has made the memory of Crema ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... these mountains are very high. During my stay in Canada, I asked many people who have traveled much in North America whether they ever met with mountains so high that the snow never melts on them in summer, to which they always answered in the negative. They say that the snow sometimes stays on the highest, viz., on some of those between Canada and the English colonies during a part of the summer, but that it melts as soon as the great ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... and in his article on Wagstaffe in the DNB. Paul V. Thompson, "Swift and the Wagstaffe Papers," Notes and Queries, 175 (1938), 79, supports the notion of Wagstaffe as an understrapper of Swift. The negative part of Dilke's thesis is perhaps the more plausible. A Comment Upon Tom Thumb, as Dilke himself confesses (Papers, p. 377), scarcely sounds very ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe

... home I relented, and talked of your mare! Miss Daw is going to try a side-saddle on Margot some morning. The animal is a trifle too light for my weight. By the bye, I nearly forgot to say that Miss Daw sat for a picture yesterday to a Rivermouth artist. If the negative turns out well, I am to have a copy. So our ends will be accomplished without crime. I wish, though, I could send you the ivorytype in the drawing-room; it is cleverly colored, and would give you an idea of ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... of food, and a want of power to convert the food into a part of the organism, are both, equally, a want of resistance; and this is the negative cause of the cessation of the vital process. The flame is extinguished, because the oil is consumed; and it is the oxygen of the ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... large portfolio was placed upon the table, and all its contents exhibited by the amateur ornithologist. Wilson was surprised; he had supposed he was himself the only person engaged in forming such a collection; and asked if it was intended to publish them. Audubon replied in the negative: he had never thought of presenting the fruits of his labors to the world. Wilson was still more surprised; he lost his cheerfulness; and though before he left Louisville Audubon explored with him the neighboring woods, loaned him his drawings, and in other ways essayed ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... fell to the earth almost helplessly, while a pigeon with difficulty maintained an irregular and precipitate flight. A carefully compiled record was made of variations of temperature and humidity, and they succeeded in determining that the upper air was charged with negative electricity. In all this these two accomplished physicists may be said to have carried out a brilliant achievement, even though their actual results may seem somewhat meagre. They not only were their own aeronauts, but succeeded ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... already found such interference necessary in the case of Germany and Venezuela. But it had been interference in a purely negative sense. He had merely insisted that the European power should not occupy American territory even temporarily. In the later case of the Dominican Republic he supplemented this negative interference with positive action based upon his conviction of the inseparable nature ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... replied by a quick and unequivocal answer in the negative; then, relaxing a little, she said more lightly, but with intent, 'I have always triumphed over difficulties all my life—I have ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... eternal and imperishable existence; but he considered this existence as having different natures, and admitted that fire, earth, air, and water were the four elements of all things. These elements he supposed to be governed by two principles, one positive and one negative, that is to say, connecting love and dissolving discord. Democritus (fl. 460 B.C.) embodied his extensive knowledge in a series of writings, of which only a few fragments have been preserved. Cicero compared him with Plato ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after a few preliminary remarks, all tending towards and leading up to the point he had in his mind, inquired if we happened to be acquainted with the Dowager Lady Snorflerer. On our replying in the negative, he presumed we had often met Lord Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on intimate terms with Sir Chipkins Glogwog. Finding that we were equally unable to lay claim to either of these distinctions, he expressed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... uncovered his shoulder and looked anxiously at the white spot. It was as obvious as ever, but did not seem to him increased since he left home. A very slight matter will sometimes give hope to a despairing man. Under the influence of this negative comfort, Bladud took up his weapons and sallied forth, closely followed ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... following some childish malady, and it requires the greatest care and most nourishing food to counteract its pernicious effects. The victim of interstitial keratitis is never strong, and, although a blood test may show a negative condition, any serious illness may cause the constitutional ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... a Latin particle, and has the force of a negative or privative; as, disagree, not to agree, disarm, to deprive ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... regenerate soul. It may slumber for a time, it may falter, it may freeze nearly to death; but sooner or later it will declare itself as the ruling passion. You should regard all your discontent with yourself as negative devotion, for that it really is. Madame Guyon said boldly, but truly, "O mon Dieu, plutot pecheur que superbe," and that is the consoling word I feel like sending you to-day. I know all about these little domestic ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... with the voice of a man who emphasises a negative in the hope of eliciting a stronger argument on the other side. But Richard allowed the negative finality in fact, if ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... day's work, lavishing her sympathy on the individual, without much general sense of pity and waste. Yes, she had worked really hard, had "done her bit"; but of late she had felt rising within her the old vague craving for "life," for pleasure, for something more than the mere negative admiration bestowed on her by her "Tommies." Those old letters—to look them through them had been a sure sign of this vague craving—had sharpened to poignancy the feeling that life was slipping away from her while she was still comely. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of Christ as an argument for the Divine origin of Christianity is recognised alike by those who receive and by those who reject it. Negative criticism has assailed the doctrine and has devised ingenious theories to explain on natural grounds the testimony on which it is received. The diversity of such explanations goes far to refute them, ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds

... between the two testimonies now before them,—Lady Byron's in 1816 and 1818, and that put forward in 1869 by Mrs. B. Stowe, as communicated by Lady Byron thirteen years ago. In the face of the evidence now given, positive, negative, and circumstantial, there can be but two alternatives in the case: either Mrs. B. Stowe must have entirely misunderstood Lady Byron, and been thus led into error and misstatement; or we must conclude that, under the pressure of a lifelong and secret sorrow, Lady Byron's mind had become ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... negative way of showing intense respect is by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that if, as is usual, the name in question has a significance, the meaning must be expressed by an idiom or other word. In this ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... newspapers take with our Government, with our Emperor, with our Imperial Family, and with our Imperial Ministers, the answer has always been, "Prosecute the libeller, and as soon as he is convicted he will be punished." This tardy and negative justice is so opposite to our expeditious and summary mode of proceeding, of punishing first and trying afterwards, that it must be both humiliating and offensive. In return, when the Americans have ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... like Devar and the members of the Curtis family. When the cool night air had tempered his indignation, and he was removed from the electrical atmosphere created by his son-in-law's positive disdain and Steingall's negative indifference, he began to survey the situation. Though not wholly a stranger in New York, he was far from being versed in the technicalities of legal and police methods, so he bethought him of securing ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... Sandwich's business is not like to come on to-day; which I am heartily glad of. This law against Conventicles is very severe; but Creed, whom I meet here, do tell me that it being moved that Papists' meetings might be included, the House was divided upon it, and it was carried in the negative; which will give great disgust to the people, I doubt. To the King's house, and there did see "Love in a Maze;" wherein very good mirth of Lacy the clown, and Wintershell the ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... hell of a lot, he thought. He'd known that Duckworth had gone to Mendez, and he already had the Hotel Byron address. There was, however, some negative information there. The last address they had was on Mendez, and yet Scholar Duckworth couldn't be found on Mendez. Obviously, he had not filed a change of address there; just as obviously, he had managed to leave the planet without ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett

... say it too," returned the landlord. "But hol' on just a minit." He moved forward to the other guest, put the same perfunctory question regarding his needs, received a negative answer, and then returned to the lady and dropped into ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... that it is a justiciable case, the Bench which is to serve as Bench of First Instance shall investigate the matter with regard to the question whether the case is more political than legal in nature. If the Court decides the question in the negative, then the same Court shall give judgment on the dispute; but, if the Court decides the question in the affirmative, then the case shall be referred by the Court to the International Council of Conciliation. Whatever the decision of the Bench ...
— The League of Nations and its Problems - Three Lectures • Lassa Oppenheim

... that Hapgood's story was a mixture of truth and lies," Mr. Emerson said, "but we haven't anything to replace it. Our evidence is all negative." ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... meet by accident?" There was desperate hope in Wolf's voice. But Norma would not lie. With her simple negative her head drooped, and she looked at her locked ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... hand that wrote the letter I have just read you. And, in his opinion, the handwriting is that of the prisoner. No letter was found in the deceased man's room corresponding to this envelope, but the jury will observe that what I have called the negative of the letter on the blotting-paper was dated June 21st, the day that the prisoner suspected the slander that had been levelled at him. The suggestion is that the deceased opened this before leaving for London, and took the letter with him. And the hand, that for the purposes ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL nations, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... triumph of the Christian Church—these were the problems over which the young Hegel pondered. Through an intense study of these problems, he discovered that evil, sin, longing, and suffering are woven into the very tissue of religious and historical processes, and that these negative elements determine the very meaning and progress of history and religion. Thereupon he began a systematic sketch of a philosophy in which a negative factor was to be recognized as the positive vehicle in the development of the whole world. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... let other States bear the burdens, replaced the fervour of 1776. In other words, the old colonial habits were reasserting themselves, and the separate States, reverting to their former accustomed negative politics, were {108} behaving toward the Continental Congress precisely as they had done toward England itself during the French wars. With hundreds of thousands of men of fighting age in America it was impossible, in 1781, to collect more ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... she, and not Miss Weeks who was playing a part, and that whatever her inquiries, she need have no fear of rousing suspicion against Oliver in a mind already dominated by a belief in John Scoville's guilt. The negative with which she followed up this sigh was consequently one of sorrowful acceptance. She made haste, however, to ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... was absolutely ignorant of any language but his native English, and had no knowledge whatever of scientific subjects; this I know to be a fact. James was above the medium height, very thin and spare, blonde complexion, light hair and blue eyes—a natural negative organization. When I first made his acquaintance he was employed in the yards of one of the railroad companies in Chicago, making up trains, or some ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various

... freely admit, is not in itself a sufficient reason to justify my rushing into print. But when I regard the matter from what may be termed a negative point of view, I do feel that it is not absolutely presumptuous in me to claim public attention. Suppose that Sir John Franklin had never gone to sea; what a life of adventure and discovery would have been lost to the world! what deeds of heroism undone, and, therefore, untold! I venture ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... mean the work's been useless. The research has saved others thousands of man hours chasing false leads. In this business negative results are almost as important as positive ones. We may never discover the solution, but our work will keep others from making the ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone

... mind approaches the subject of death negatively, stripping off the attributes of finite being; the Eastern mind, positively, putting on the attributes of infinite being. Negative acts, denying function, are antipathetic, and lower the sense of life; positive acts, affirming function, are sympathetic, and raise the sense of life. Therefore the end to which those look, annihilation, is dreaded; that to which these look, Nirwana, is desired. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Section 1. The Necessity Of Faith For Justification Section 2. The Necessity Of Other Preparatory Acts Besides Faith Chapter II. The State Of Justification Section 1. The Nature Of Justification Article 1. The Negative Element Of Justification Article 2. The Positive Element Of Justification Section 2. Justifying Or Sanctifying Grace Article 1. The Nature Of Sanctifying Grace Article 2. The Effects Of Sanctifying Grace Article 3. The Supernatural ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... and bravely to the end, hiding the wounds which tortured him, and giving no sign of pain,—he would, indeed, have been worthy of admiration; he would have been a hero. But we think it will appear, upon a closer examination, that his fortitude was a negative, not a positive quality; it was insensibility, not courage. He did not suffer, because he did not feel. The emotional part of our nature he did not possess; at least, it did not show itself in any of the forms which it usually takes,—in love ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... Incantation" modified in a few particulars, and like that one, the other translations in this volume were in prose. The work is done as well as possible, and it remained for later scholars to point out errors in translation. The negative contractions in Icelandic were as yet unfamiliar, and so, as Walter Scott pointed out (in Edin. Rev., Oct., 1806), Percy made Regner Lodbrog say, "The pleasure of that day (of battle, p. 34 in this Five Pieces) was like having a fair virgin placed beside one in the bed," ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby

... (if not actually a playful fable by which the sage expressed the negative stress of conscience, the "thou shalt not" of all awe-inspiring precepts) might be a symbol for latent wisdom. Socrates turned a trick, played upon him by his senses, into a message from heaven. He taught a feeble voice—senseless ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... fancies with Werter and The Robbers, announced his desire, which sounded very like a demand, of going to Gottingen instead of to Oxford. Never were Mr. Maltravers's notions of a proper and gentlemanlike finish to education more completely and rudely assaulted. He stammered out a negative, and hurried to his study to write a long letter to Cleveland, who, himself an Oxford prize-man, would, he was persuaded, see the matter in the same light. Cleveland answered the letter in person: listened in silence to all the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the group remaining with Watson, not one of them ever dreamed that any danger might come out of the Blind Spot. Its manifestations had been local and mostly negative. No; the main incentive of their interest had been ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... and a clear mind knowing all things heartlessly)—in the case, I say, of all these accidental attributes, there recurs for argument, one analogous to that by which we showed the anterior probability of a self-existence. Things positive must precede things negative. Sight must have been, before blindness is possible; and before we can arrive at a just idea of no sight. Power must be precursor to an abstraction from power, or weakness. The minor-existence of ignorance is an impossibility, unless you preallow the major-existence of wisdom; for ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... complete virgin that she was, did not have the same pleasure as those who are not virgins, when she received the divine annunciation. Father Sanchez has discussed the question very fully "whether the Virgin Mary 'spent' in copulation with the Holy-Ghost," unhappily, he decided in the negative, and I have too much veneration for Father Sanchez not to submit to his decision; but because of it, I am vexed with the Virgin ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... cause that already passed to be cancelled, and to give order unto our Solicitor General for the drawing up of a new warrant for our signature to the same parties, according to such directions and reservations as herewith we send you. Wherein we are more particular, both in the affirmative and the negative, to the end that, as on one side we would have nothing pass us to remain upon record which either for the form might not become us or for the substance might cross our many proclamations (pursued with good success) for buildings, or, on ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... caution to your lack of negative accomplishments. I have had an eye on you this winter, though you did not know it. I have made inquiries about you, and hence I am not here to-night entirely through impulse. You have not made a fortune at the law, but you have ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... about you mis-reading the dials, Nogol, just about a lug like you reading them at all. Remember, when the little hand is straight up that's negative. Positive results start when it goes towards the hand you use to ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon

... arrogant methods and tactical blunders of Senator Conkling. When three of the delegates voted against a resolution binding all to support the nominee whoever that nominee might be, he offered a resolution that those who had voted in the negative "do not deserve and have forfeited their vote in this convention." The feeling excited by this condemnatory motion was so strong that Conkling was obliged to withdraw it. He also made a contest in behalf of the unit rule but was defeated, as the convention decided that every delegate should have ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... injunction depend on this premise,—the positive, cultivate your feeling, striving toward increasingly just appreciation; the negative, never tell a story you do ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... is possible until he is placed in a position that requires the apparently impossible. This was the situation George was now in. If he had stopped to ask himself the question, "Can I do it?" he probably would have been forced to answer it in the negative. As it was, he paid no heed to the danger behind, and thought only of the safety in front, if he could but keep up ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... export-oriented agricultural sector, and a diversified industrial base. Over the past decade, however, the country has suffered recurring economic problems of inflation, external debt, capital flight, and budget deficits. Growth in 2000 was a negative 0.8%, as both domestic and foreign investors remained skeptical of the government's ability to pay debts and maintain the peso's fixed exchange rate with the US dollar. The economic situation worsened ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... and that he looked at twice before giving. It was said that they were married, and certain circumstances seemed to justify this rumour. As for instance, during the illness of Monseigneur, the King, as I have said, asked Madame de Maintenon if she had seen Mademoiselle Choin, and upon receiving negative reply, was displeased. Instead of driving her away from the chateau he inquired particularly after her! This, to say the least, looked as though Mademoiselle Choin was Monseigneur's Maintenon—but the matter remained incomprehensible ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... subordinate importance, and is applicable only to the "duties of the limbs." Among these alone are there some which the reason unaided by revelation would not have prescribed. The "duties of the heart" are all rational. Like all precepts they are both positive and negative. Examples of positive duties of the heart are, belief in a creator who made the world out of nothing; belief in his unity and incomparability; the duty to serve him with all our heart, to trust in him, to submit to him, to fear him, to feel that he is watching our open and secret actions, to long ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... be the business of these introductions to give what assistance they may to discover where it did lie; it is only necessary, before taking up the task in the regular biographical and critical way of the introductory cicerone, to make two negative observations. It did not lie, as some have apparently thought, in the conception, or the outlining, or the filling up of such a scheme as the Comedie Humaine. In the first place, the work of every great writer, ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac

... any existing reason why we, who have so long been so very intimate, should now be placed in a situation of negative hostility. I am sure that we are well calculated to render to each other great services; you are the best judge whether your interests were ever before so well attended to as by me ... The great connexion which I have for the last two ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... frankly recognized, he can spare himself the toil of talking. The parliamentary debate of the future will probably be conducted in silence, and with only such gestures as go by the name of "passes." The chairman will state the question before the House and the side, affirmative or negative, to be taken by the honorable member entitled to the floor. That gentleman will rise, train his compelling orbs upon the miscreants in opposition, execute a few passes and exhaust his alloted time in looking at them. He will then yield to an honorable member of dissenting views. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... first, Edison's broad idea of his storage battery was to make perforated metallic containers having the active materials packed therein; nickel hydrate for the positive and iron oxide for the negative plate. This plan has been adhered to throughout, and has found its consummation in the present form of the completed commercial cell, but in the middle ground which stands between the early crude beginnings and the perfected type of to-day there ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... There is a photographic curiosity now often exhibited which, I think, illustrates the thought I want to emphasize. A family or a class can be photographed, one by one, at exactly the same focus and on the same negative, with a result that you have a clear and distinct face, not of any one's personality, but that actually combines the features of the whole into a new individual ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... be truly said that such obtuse persons liked pain, though they might appear to do so. I cannot think that anyone enjoys what is pain to them, if only from the fact that it detracts and divides the attention. This, however, is only my own idea drawn from my own negative experience. No woman has ever told me that she would like to have pain inflicted on her. On the other hand, the desire to inflict pain seems almost universal among men. I have only met one man in whom I have never at any time been able to detect it. At the same time most men shrink from ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... insisted, foreseeing a break in that firm negative. Where could they be more comfortable? Besides, weren't they going to marry as soon ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... failed to bring about much-needed structural changes. The IMF suspended Uzbekistan's $185 million standby arrangement in late 1996 because of governmental steps that made impossible fulfillment of Fund conditions. Uzbekistan has responded to the negative external conditions generated by the Asian and Russian financial crises by tightening export and currency controls within its already ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... only enjoyed the benefit of the act who took a very strict test, in which, among other things, they denied the Pope's temporal and civil jurisdiction within this realm. This bill passed both Houses without a single negative. It applied only to England. Scotland was alarmed by the report that the Scotch Catholics were in like manner to be relieved. In Edinburgh and Glasgow the Papists suffered from outrageous acts of violence and cruelty, and government did not think it advisable to repress ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... a rustling of silken skirts, then a resolute and very important-looking woman paused at the table. Just behind her waited a short, thin, rather negative-looking man. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock

... borne out by the statistics of the negroes in the United States, a large proportion of whom are of mixed blood. For taking as a basis the number of children of negro descent born during the year ending June 1, 1900 reported by the Twelfth Census, the females predominated, giving a negative masculinity of 99.8. Furthermore, the percentage of consanguineous marriage is probably high in ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of blondes. [Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.—Please to tell us about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring matter,—NEGATIVE or WASHED blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree, —POSITIVE or STAINED blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... natural fresh water resources in some areas; the policies of former Communist regimes promoted rapid urbanization and industrial growth that had negative effects on the environment; the burning of soft coal in power plants and the lack of enforcement of environmental laws severely polluted the air in Ulaanbaatar; deforestation, overgrazing, and the converting ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... at every house where her friends resided, but everywhere was met with a wondering negative. No one appeared to have seen her, or to know anything of her whereabouts, and at length, wearied with his fruitless inquiries, and rendered almost desperate at his want of success, he went to the village tavern, ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... Island, looked very inviting, and I should have been glad to visit a place so well known to seamen by sight, but so little known by actual touching at. Our recent stay at the Cocos, however, had settled the question of our calling anywhere else for some time decidedly in the negative, unless we might be compelled by accident; moreover, even in these days of law and order, it is not wise to go poking about among the islands of the Malayan seas unless you are prepared to fight. Our ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... Banshee," objected Sam, "no more than they can see a ghost; anyway, that's what Granny de Neuville says." So the Dog's negative testimony was ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Eddie answered in the negative, but said he had been hurt, though he hoped not seriously. Hearing Mr. Thompson and his sons coming with his father, he ran to meet them; his mother, having by this time mastered her emotion, was now quite calm and prepared for the worst. They bringing him ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... will then gaze steadily at the colored paper for a half-minute, it will be found that if the colored paper is removed one sees its complementary color. If the head is not moved, this complementary color has the same size and shape as the original colored piece of paper. The negative after-image can be projected on a background at different distances, its size depending on the distance of the background. The after-image will be found to mix with an objective color in accordance with the principles ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle

... Womankind peremptorily refuse Weissenfels, and take to a bed of sickness; inexpugnable there, for the moment. Baireuth is but a weak middle term; and there are disagreements on it. Answer from England, affirmative or even negative, we have yet none. Promptly affirmative, that might still avail, and be an honorable outcome. Perhaps better pause till that arrive, and declare itself?—Friedrich Wilhelm knows nothing of the Villa mission, of the urgencies that have been ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... prove a negative. But no evidence has ever been brought forward to substantiate the rumors brought against Hortense. These vile slanderers have even gone so far as to accuse Napoleon of crimes, in reference to the daughter of Josephine and the wife of his brother, which, if true, should consign him to eternal ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... sometimes rises on me,—idle enough, for it never can be answered in the affirmative or the negative, Whether it was not these same refitted Jomsburgers who appeared some while after this at Red Head Point, on the shore of Angus, and sustained a new severe beating, in what the Scotch still faintly remember as their "Battle of Loncarty"? Beyond doubt a powerful Norse-pirate armament dropt anchor ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... in the contrary direction. And the appearance is accepted, too, as a reality; being explained, agreeably to the analysis just given, by saying that H has no absolute rotation about its axis, while the other wheels have; that of F being positive and that of K negative. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... this committee all executive business, as it should present itself, would require a more persevering self-denial than I suppose Congress to possess. It will be much better to make that separation by a federal act. The negative proposed to be given them on all the acts of the several legislatures, is now, for the first time, suggested to my mind. Prima facie, I do not like it. It fails in an essential character; that the hole and the patch should be commensurate. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... dolts! chaff and bran! porridge after meat!" With respect to our author himself, it is but simple justice to declare, that he comes to the great work of "restoring Shakespeare"—not only with more negative advantages than the unfortunate tribe of critics so cavalierly dismissed, but than all who have aspired to illumine the page of a defunct writer since the days of Aristarchus. As far as we are enabled to judge, Mr. Becket never examined an old play in his ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... therefore, must remember the various declarations, draw both positive and negative inferences therefrom, and whenever it is not advisable to open his partner's suit or his own, should follow the old principle which, since the days of Pole, has been applicable to all games of the Whist family, and realize "'Tis seldom wrong to lead up ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... philosophical monistic materialists who are entitled to be heard on questions of the highest moment to every individual man, and to human society." But just what the man means by the "highest moment" we are anxious to know, as he is the most blank negative of religion that we can conceive. When he attempts to answer the religious objections to evolution, or, as he terms it, the descendence theory, he unceremoniously dismisses them as beneath his notice, giving his only ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various

... the healthier,—braces the nerves," said Mr. Avenel; "but you young fellows relax the system by hot rooms and late hours. Fond of dancing, of course, sir?" Then, without waiting for Randal's negative, Mr. Richard continued rapidly, "Mrs. Avenel has a soiree dansante on Thursday,—shall be very happy to see you in Eaton Square. Stop, I have a card;" and he drew out a dozen large invitation-cards, from which he selected one, and presented it to Randal. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Concentration. Concentration "within" implies the withdrawing of attention from the external world and the placing of mind on "God," "Spirit," "Heaven," "Religion," "Peace," "Nirvana," "Eternity," etc. This is Involution, i.e., incoming or negative energy. ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... these, not in order to throw ridicule upon the Celt-lovers,—on the contrary, I feel a great deal of sympathy with them,—but rather, to make it clear what an immense advantage the Celt-haters, the negative side, have in the controversy about Celtic antiquity; how much a clear-headed sceptic, like Mr. Nash, may utterly demolish, and, in demolishing, give himself the appearance of having won an entire victory. But an entire ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... it was largely practised elsewhere. This view, however, lost its validity when residents "elsewhere" had to allow that no traces of infanticide could be found in their neighbourhood; and so on. Luckily, still greater comfort is to be found in the following argument,—a rare example of proving a negative—from which it will be readily seen that female infanticide on any abnormal scale is quite beyond the bounds of the possible. Those who have even a bowing acquaintance with Chinese social life will grant that every boy, at about the age of eighteen, is provided ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... reason for the expedition being news of Veranilda's approaching marriage, brought to him by a fisherman who said he had been paid by a person unknown. Did Petronilla, he next inquired, know that Veranilda was to be sent to the East? To this Marcian replied with a negative, adding: ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... Mrs. Billman, perhaps because she went out of her way to be nice to the artist's wife. Milly had not yet convinced the wife of the Responsible Editor that she was important, and she never wasted time over "negative" people. The dark little Hazel Fredericks, with her muddy eyes and rather thick lips, was a more subtle woman than Mrs. Billman and took the pains to cultivate "possibilities." She had Milly at lunch one day and listened ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... though consisting of negative criticism and analysis of facts, and not trenching on the domain of practical policy and constructive suggestion, aims at facilitating a rational social policy by placing in their true perspective the main statical facts and dynamic forces ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... seemed only a negative form of sound after the bomb, and clearly above the firing could be heard a howl. The Vicar's dog, still howling, ran ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... suppressing all motives of strangeness, all the beauty which is born of difficulty, permitting nothing but an Olympian, though perhaps somewhat wearisome calm. In effect, such a conception of Greek art and poetry leaves in the central expressions of Greek culture none but negative qualities; and the legend of Demeter and Persephone, perhaps the most popular of all Greek legends, is sufficient to show that the "worship of sorrow" was not without its function in Greek religion; their legend is a legend made by and for sorrowful, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... her annoyance, Wharton came forward to her help, guaranteeing the solvency and permanence of her new partnership in glib and pleasant phrase, wherein her angry fancy suspected at once the note of irony. But Mrs. Jellison held firm, embroidering her negative, indeed, with her usual cheerful chatter, but sticking to it all the same. At last there was no way of saving dignity but to talk of something else and go—above all, to talk of something else before going, lest the would-be benefactor should be ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward



Words linked to "Negative" :   unfavorable, dissenting, no, perverse, charged, vote down, pessimistic, controvert, maths, negate, photographic film, contradict, vote out, negative reinforcing stimulus, disinclined, defeat, mathematics, negativity, bad, disadvantageous, negative correlation, counter, oppose, denial, unsupportive, neutral, medical specialty, film, nay, quality, antagonistic, shoot down, dissident, medicine, unfavourable, positive, affirmative, math, Rh-negative blood type, vote, negative pole, dissentient, destructive, kill



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