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negative
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

negative as in:  had a negative effect

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • Higher gasoline prices negatively affected fast food sales.
  • My luggage was lost. I got sick. I was robbed. The whole vacation was a negative experience.
    negative = bad
  • Wage growth is lower than hoped and negatively impacting the stock market.
    negatively = in a bad or harmful manner
  • I'm making a list of the positives and negatives of switching jobs.
    negatives = things or characteristics that are bad or harmful
  • "When he's sober, I've never heard him say one negative thing about you," says Peeta.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • The only negative about my going to Savanna's party was that now I wouldn't be able to go to the parade and the unicorn costume would he wasted.   (source)
    negative = thing that is bad or harmful
  • Roland draws his negative energy from the kids around him, and there are a lot of kids here for him to draw from.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • Fussing over children who cry only encourages them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.   (source)
  • The men referred to him by a host of nicknames, including the Animal, the Big Flag, Little Napoleon, and, most often, the Bird, a name chosen because it carried no negative connotation that could get the POWs beaten.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • But each such error reflected negatively on his parents' guidance and infringed on the community's sense of order and success.   (source)
    negatively = poorly
▲ show less (of above)
show 89 more with this conextual meaning
  • And both you and I needed to cleanse our minds of negative thoughts.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • Of course, to talk about the negative sections and aspects of Baltimore without talking about its strengths, its history, and its opportunities would be inaccurate.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • In addition to containing the transmitter, the serum stimulates the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in processing negative emotions—like fear—and then induces a hallucination.   (source)
  • In France and Italy, the words for "left"—gauche and sinistra—came to have deeply negative overtones, while their right-hand counterparts rang of righteousness, dexterity, and correctness.   (source)
  • … I would raise my hand, as if I was going to make a negative gesture, and then I would wave and smile.   (source)
  • I was tempted to take another jab at Maxon, but I didn't want Marlee to see him in a negative light.   (source)
  • It was the flip side to the passion that made her feel as if she'd gone electric inside-just directed, negatively, at someone weak.   (source)
    negatively = in a bad or harmful manner
  • Not that her parenting style is a negative one.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • It took a long time for me to learn that inappropriate activities always brought negative consequences.   (source)
  • She had expected never to see the planet again, but she was disturbed by her negative reaction to the news of the planet's destruction.   (source)
    negative = feeling bad
  • The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon—such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • Still, I didn't think she would say anything negative, simply because it wasn't in her nature, and when she turned to me, she was smiling.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • That word, of course, has negative connotations these days.   (source)
  • Yet some of the negative consequences of immigration are real, and are becoming increasingly evident as more women and children arrive.   (source)
    negative = harmful
  • For a split second something didn't feel right. I thought of aborting. Negative, I told myself a second later.   (source)
    negative = no
  • Dodge had long ceased to be surprised by negative twists of fate.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • I originally called it "The Best Failure Award," but failure has so many negative connotations that students couldn't get past the word itself.   (source)
  • Before the Board of Regents announced its decision, the negative press about Southam's work had gotten the attention of the NIH, which funded his research and required its investigators to get consent for all studies involving humans.   (source)
  • Because once they have enough to eat, and they go out there, there will be something else hopefully positive, not negative.   (source)
  • Combining a strongly negative event with a reorganisation was, in PR terms, such a clumsy error that it could not but astonish Blomkvist's detractors and garner optimum attention for Henrik Vanger's new role.   (source)
  • Scared to admit either to those close to me who remained clueless eyes closed to every negative thing about me, or dying to know every dirty little tidbit.   (source)
  • High spots in Stamps were usually negative: droughts, floods, lynchings and deaths.   (source)
  • 'But you can't just turn your back on all your responsibilities and run away from them,' Major Danby insisted. 'It's such a negative move.'   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • I wouldn't want them to be a negative influence on your sister.   (source)
  • These negative attitudes find their focus in attacks on minority languages, which are all too obviously badges of ethnicity.   (source)
  • …both the water and the rocks ended up worse off in the bargain, and then when she dumped me in the same coffee shop where we'd met three months before, she said she was the water and I was the rocks and we were just going to keep going at each other till there was nothing left of either of us—and when I pointed out that, really, water doesn't suffer any negative effects whatsoever from slowly eroding the rocks on the lakeshore, she allowed as to how that was true but dumped me anyway.   (source)
  • As far as I was concerned a firm grasp of the negative in the cause of survival had been quite enough to occupy me; I was only just beginning to perceive the vacancy left by the absent positive.   (source)
  • Do you know how much women loathe it when guys think every show of negative emotion is tied to our menstrual cycle, like we're sheep or something?   (source)
    negative = bad or unhappy
  • And yet with all this negativeness, Mrs. Hickey was still cheerful, joking and kidding and trying to put the best face on things, telling me how she took strength from Patrick, who never once complained about sleeping at the hospital, or eating the food.   (source)
    negativeness = badness (a state where bad things are happening)
  • I have made some inquiries myself in the last few days, but the results have, I fear, been negative.   (source)
    negative = unsuccessful
  • At our next meeting he made no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • "I have pointed out some of the negative wastes of competition," answered the other.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • It means learning to break out of the selfish life ...It's not a negative thing, but a way of freeing yourself to live life more fully.†   (source)
  • Did you get any negative reactions from people at school?†   (source)
  • She says patients like Nathaniel, who have been forcibly hospitalized or had negative reactions to medication, often aggressively resist any efforts to help them.†   (source)
  • But as the days passed, I was less concerned about Link's warning and more worried about the boy who now came into study hall each day threatening to toss me out of the window, and the girls who encircled me at least once a day, saying every negative thing they could about the parts of my body.†   (source)
  • I gritted my teeth and reminded myself of the negative consequences when I'd let my temper get away from me yesterday.†   (source)
  • Saida took it personally when people said negative things about me, and I once had to really calm her down when she wanted to go after someone who had insulted me and said I was becoming "annoying" now that I was pregnant.†   (source)
  • No. I wouldn't think about negative things tonight.†   (source)
  • Phaedrus' argument for the abolition of the degree-and— grading system produced a nonplussed or negative reaction in all but a few students at first, since it seemed, on first judgment, to destroy the whole University system.†   (source)
  • My comrades believed this was a trivial matter and the negative consequences of resistance would outweigh any benefits.†   (source)
  • "Arizona has been overwhelmed with illegal immigration and all the negative things that follow—crime, increased public service costs, especially education, and depression of our wages," said Arizona State Representative John Kavanagh.†   (source)
  • Once Maureen is taken care of, it is likely we can return to New York with few negative consequences.†   (source)
  • I don't know exactly what he thought of me—doubtless the snotty, free-wheeling style of my manuscript reports had something to do with his negative reaction—but I thought him cold, remote, humorless, with the swollen ego and unapproachable manner of a man who has fatuously overvalued his own accomplishments.†   (source)
  • Especially if Jordan doesn't do anything to get a negative report from probation.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • It's a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your destiny.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • But the separation of children and parents has had lasting negative consequences.   (source)
    negative = harmful
  • Be careful of giving in to negative peer pressure.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • In the negative sentiment override state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other.   (source)
  • Jai tries to focus on each day, rather than the negative things down the road.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • Always taking my side, blaming his negative perceptions on the Capitol's torture.   (source)
  • I knew from Susan and Bill that a lot of what looked positive was actually negative.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • Instead of being surrounded by negativity, the three of us were engulfed by encouragement.   (source)
    negativity = harmful things
  • Many outcomes of the new strategy have been unintended -- and negative, the PPIC says.   (source)
    negative = harmful
  • But what counted as positive, and what counted as negative?   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • Gramps had a way of dwelling on the negative.   (source)
  • Women have taken a term that had a negative connotation and made it positive.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • And the only one who knew every little negative, dirty thing would have forgiven me anything.   (source)
  • There's nothing negative about running away to save my life.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • As the room fills, I brace myself for a less congenial reception. But the only people who register any kind of negativity are Haymitch, who's always out of sorts, and a sour-faced Fulvia Cardew.   (source)
    negativity = bad mood
  • Incredibly, the converse was also true: when she sent negative, polluting thoughts to the water, the ice crystals froze in chaotic, fractured forms.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • On a technical level, she was measuring the amount of positive and negative emotion, because one of Gottman's findings is that for a marriage to survive, the ratio of positive to negative emotion in a given encounter has to be at least five to one.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • Her cells were part of research into the genes that cause cancer and those that suppress it; they helped develop drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, and Parkinson's disease; and they've been used to study lactose digestion, sexually transmitted diseases, appendicitis, human longevity, mosquito mating, and the negative cellular effects of working in sewers.   (source)
    negative = harmful
  • It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • Prosperity. To me the word has a negative connotation. Abnegation uses it to describe self-indulgence.   (source)
  • The way his shorts are hanging off his hips is reason enough for me to forgive every single negative thing I've learned about him today.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • At the same time, the mayor hadn't enjoyed the fallout from his treatment of the Lost Boys Soccer Team, and he had no appetite for another round of negative publicity in the newspapers.   (source)
  • He had said that it was a good thing for the boy to clean the crystal pieces, so that he could free himself from negative thoughts.   (source)
  • The negative feeling you've been associating with physical touch your whole life doesn't apply to me.   (source)
  • As the boys took the field, she cleared her throat, squinted against the platinum glare of an August afternoon, and tried to stifle the negative thought that had been nagging her since tryouts began: This is a rotten place to play soccer.   (source)
    negative = bad
  • Eventhough it was difficult, we discovered that we had to resist all the negative peer pressure around us.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • Maybe I just read him wrong and my own negative reaction prompted him to change his mind about asking me out.   (source)
  • Jasmine Majid, a Georgia state official who coordinated refugee resettlement and who had been on the stage, told an Atlanta newspaper afterward that some of the questions asked at the forum "reflect a very sad and negative aspect of Clarkston."   (source)
    negative = bad
  • Perhaps because we were constantly exposed to crime and negative people like the Bomb, we unconsciously copied the behavior that surrounded us.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • The big gender difference with negative emotions is that women are more critical, and men are more likely to stonewall.   (source)
  • I contemplated tearing them down, thinking they would only serve to bring about more negative memories.   (source)
  • In my head, I was frantically trying to determine the ratios of positive emotion to negative emotion.   (source)
  • I look around at my empty living room and, for the first time ever, the boredom starts to have a negative effect on me.   (source)
  • Unfortunately, there was a lot of negative peer pressure in my neighborhood, so much so that it became the norm to do the wrong thing instead of the right thing.   (source)
  • But once they start going down, toward negative emotion, ninety-four percent will continue going down.   (source)
  • I often imagined myself in a different world, one not filled with murder, drugs, gangs, crime, and negativity.   (source)
    negativity = harmful things
  • She brainwashed our class with positive messages, which made it easy to deal with the negativity in our environment.   (source)
    negativity = bad things
  • I was overwhelmed by the task of counting negativity, because everywhere I looked, I saw negative emotions.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • But when we listened closely to their interaction and measured the ratio of positive to negative emotions, we got a different story.   (source)
  • There was so much around me that shouted "poor" or "dysfunctional" that going to a Catholic school combated that negativity a little.   (source)
    negativity = harmful environment
  • Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative.   (source)
    negative = bad or harmful
  • His findings is that for a marriage to survive, the ratio of positive to negative emotion in a given encounter has to be at least five to one.   (source)
  • What he does, he explains, is track the ups and downs of a couple's level of positive and negative emotion, and he's found that it doesn't take very long to figure out which way the line on the graph is going.   (source)
  • When the students were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionnaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement—and the number of items they got right was cut in half.   (source)
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negative as in:  negative feedback from customers

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • We're getting a lot of negative feedback about the proposed changes.
    negative = indicating criticism or disagreement
  • The candidate ran a negative campaign.
    negative = critical (pointing to bad things about her opponent--rather than good things about herself)
  • "Are we cleared for landing?" "Negative. The runway is not clear."
    negative = no
  • Needless to say, Rudy answered in the negative, and the paper was torn up and he started again.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • Much of the negative mail was sent by Alaskans.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • "Negative," Johanssen replied.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • At the table we discussed whether there was any saltpeter in the mashed potatoes. I defended the negative.   (source)
    negative = an answer of "no"
  • I usually shook my head in a negative gesture.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • "I hate romance," said Flora out loud to herself. She liked the way the words sounded. She imagined them floating above her in a comic-strip bubble; it was a comforting thing to have words hanging over her head. Especially negative words about romance.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • You're surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people, who dislike you, and all because you don't listen to the advice of your own better half.   (source)
▲ show less (of above)
show 89 more with this conextual meaning
  • "Negative," Sanders said.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • They knew how to fire up a church the old-fashioned way, without talk of politics and bad mouthing and negativity but with real talk of God and genuine concern for its parishioners.   (source)
    negativity = criticism
  • Their bosses almost never had anything negative to say about their abilities or their technical chops.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • I replied in the negative.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • "No," he said, and smothered the two words that rose behind his lips after that simple negative: Not yet.   (source)
  • In fairness, from what I've heard his book is not quite as negative as I understood his lecture to be.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • A public survey about their research was overwhelmingly negative, calling it pointless and dangerous, an example of "men trying to be gods."   (source)
    negative = critical or bad
  • Then he asked the guy doing the pleading if he wanted to quit too, and we all heard the sharp "Negative," and we saw the guy running like a scalded cat down the beach to join us in the water.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • But much of the negativity directed at the Fugees also seemed born of resentment, from parents who had spent a small fortune on gear, soccer clinics, and team fees only to see their sons trounced by a haphazardly equipped group of kids with foreign accents.   (source)
    negativity = criticism
  • He also sent a colleague in the criminal division to interview bus drivers and staff at the railway station, to find out whether anyone might have seen her. As the negative reports came in, it became increasingly likely that Harriet Vanger had fallen victim to some sort of misfortune.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • "Had The MTM been a mere pilot, such overwhelmingly negative comments would have buried it," Sally Bedell [Smith] writes in her biography of Silverman, Up the Tube.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • I've sent other people there, in the past. I've heard nothing negative.   (source)
    negative = critical or bad
  • And he accepted my negative answer with a smile that meant he didn't believe a word.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • "Are you a drinking man?" was the first question he asked a job applicant, and even though the fellow gave a negative answer, he still must sign a work contract containing a clause that declared the agreement instantly void if the employee should be discovered "harboring alcohol."   (source)
  • (Shaking his head negatively but gently) No. Between a man and a woman there need be only one kind of feeling. I have that for you …. Now even …. right this moment …   (source)
  • When a bill that would have suspended all trade with Britain resulted in a tie vote in the Senate, the Vice President "determined the question in the negative."   (source)
    negative = answer of "no"
  • There was a low grumble in the negative, but Mrs. Perkins didn't seem to notice.   (source)
    negative = indicating disagreement
  • Some distinctive expressions have been on the rise—for example, the use of weren't for the past tense in negative sentences regardless of subject person or number, such as "weren't me," or "She weren't home."   (source)
    negative = saying "no"
  • As if to answer in the negative, Alessandro, who for the second time in a matter of hours found himself unable to move and without air, bit Lorna fiercely in one of her huge buttocks.   (source)
  • It was strange, she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials, as if existence had ceased, facts had vanished and only the frantic negatives uttered by officials and columnists gave any clue to the reality they were denying.   (source)
    negatives = indicating what was not done (rather than what was done)
  • We did not, and because we did not, we had no positive — we were condemned to negatives, to not revealing ourselves, to not speaking when we would, to not using what we knew, to not being found out — to a life of perpetual deception, concealment, and lying.   (source)
    negatives = focusing on things not done--rather than on things done
  • I don't know why you're so negative about the newspaper.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • He waited, ignoring the negative answer because he could hear the conflict in my thoughts.†   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • When she answered in the negative, he asked, "Have they made any headway at all?"†   (source)
  • Only because I prefer a positive to a negative.   (source)
    negative = not doing something
  • The question was answered by a negative silence.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy.   (source)
    negative = not doing something
  • "...did you tear this book?" A denial. Another pause. ...
    "Susan Harper, did you do this?" Another negative.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled.   (source)
  • When it came to the question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not (Praskovya Pavlovna had capital razors that had been left by her late husband), the question was angrily answered in the negative.   (source)
  • Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the negative.   (source)
  • Again Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened to add: "Never mind!"   (source)
  • I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt; so, I replied in the negative.   (source)
  • Even the farrier did not negative this sentiment: on the contrary, he took it up as peculiarly his own, and invited any hardy person present to contradict him.   (source)
    negative = criticize or say "no" to
  • Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question; and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain himself, having stopped his vessel's way, was seen descending her side.   (source)
    negatively = indicating an answer of "no"
  • I have been frequently asked, when a slave, if I had a kind master, and do not remember ever to have given a negative answer; nor did I, in pursuing this course, consider myself as uttering what was absolutely false; for I always measured the kindness of my master by the standard of kindness set up among slaveholders around us.   (source)
  • The young man's finger, glided over the words, but at each one Noirtier answered by a negative sign.   (source)
  • "Negative, Commander," Martinez responded.   (source)
  • He was back in Kuwait and had seen something on television that was negative about the troops.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • "Negative, Flight," Telemetry interrupted.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • He'd never even met a retarded person, and he found that the images he had were all negative.   (source)
    negative = indicating criticism or disagreement, or "no"
  • The answer in all mankind must be in the negative.   (source)
    negative = answer of "no"
  • They think they are more forthcoming than they actually are, or more negative than they actually are.   (source)
    negative = critical
  • But when we did get negative feedback, it was almost always about how the new employees were too big for their britches.   (source)
  • I won't say anything negative about my own family, though that doesn't mean I won't defend them if somebody else does, and as of today, my gossiping is a thing of the past.   (source)
  • "Negative," I responded.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • Negative!   (source)
  • "Negative," interrupted Lewis.   (source)
  • Negative, Flight.   (source)
  • A negative grunt.   (source)
  • "When the election between Burr and myself was kept in suspense by the Federalists," Jefferson would write to Benjamin Rush, "and they were mediating to place the President [pro tempore] of the Senate at the head of government, I called on Mr. Adams with a view to have this desperate measure prevented by his negative."   (source)
    negative = vote against the measure
  • The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.   (source)
    negative = to not do something
  • We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission.   (source)
    negative = indicating disagreement
  • She thanked Miss Crawford, but gave a decided negative.   (source)
    negative = answer of "no"
  • Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was proud of his position.   (source)
    negative = critical (not believing)
  • He looked at me keenly, and seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinized them closely.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.   (source)
  • "Have you ever seen the place?"
    Fanny gave a quick negative, and tried to hide her interest in the subject by...   (source)
    negative = answer of "no"
  • Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.   (source)
    negative = to say "no"
  • At this word APOLOGIES, a cloud passed over the brow of Athos, a haughty smile curled the lip of Porthos, and a negative sign was the reply of Aramis.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded her—judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions—if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the question he put.   (source)
  • For months afterwards, I every day settled the question finally in the negative, and reopened and reargued it next morning.   (source)
  • He returned a sign in the negative.   (source)
  • These being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, and, walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the scene.   (source)
  • Grimaud shook his head negatively.   (source)
  • Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.   (source)
  • And I should have been very much surprised had either of my daughters, on receiving a proposal of marriage at any time which might carry with it only half the eligibility of this, immediately and peremptorily, and without paying my opinion or my regard the compliment of any consultation, put a decided negative on it.   (source)
    negative = answer of "no"
  • Ali returned a sign in the negative.   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • Another sign in the negative.   (source)
  • Though answered in the negative, he begged so earnestly to be permitted to visit those on the fifth floor, that, in despite of the oft-repeated assurance of the concierge that they were occupied, Dantes succeeded in inducing the man to go up to the tenants, and ask permission for a gentleman to be allowed to look at them.   (source)
  • The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templeman only had come.†   (source)
  • The young man shook his head sorrowfully, as he replied in the negative.†   (source)
  • When Flora replied in the negative, Little Dorrit said that she understood why he had been so delicate, but that she felt sure he would approve of her confiding her secret to Flora, and that she would therefore do so now with Flora's permission.†   (source)
  • Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to ask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted from south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some blackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or with indifference.†   (source)
  • Regretfully, Mrs. Fowler returned a negative answer.†   (source)
  • First, they asked us if we knew the man, sitting at the end of the table, who had told them of the death of Joseph Buquet; and, when we answered in the negative, they looked still more concerned.†   (source)
  • He made Isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether they had any to lend or sell, and his heart sank within him, at the negative answers returned everywhere.†   (source)
  • She was answered in the negative.†   (source)
  • To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest return a monosyllabic negative answer?   (source)
  • And this, I say, it was, that made Felix, this negative man tremble.   (source)
    negative = not doing something
  • …less can be founded upon his negative virtue, or what he has forborne to do:   (source)
  • Before I conclude this chapter, I shall beg leave to discourse a little of the wonderful excellency of negative religion and negative virtue.   (source)
  • The negative man, though he is no drunkard is yet intoxicated with the pride of his own worth; a good neighbour and peace-maker in other families, but a tyrant in his own;   (source)
  • And if neither his negative nor positive piety can be equal to the reward, and to the eternity that reward is to last for, what then is to become of the Pharisee, when he is to be judged by the sincerity of his repentance, and rewarded, according to the infinite…   (source)
  • When the negative man converses with the invisible world, he is filled with as much horror and dread as Felix, when St Paul reasoned to him of temperance, righteousness, and of judgment to come; for Felix, though a great philosopher, of great power and reverence, was a negative man, and he was made sensible by the Apostle, that, as a life of virtue and temperance was its own reward, by giving a healthy body, a clear head, and a composed life, so eternal happiness must proceed from…   (source)
  • What remedy can we apply to this malady? And to this I must negatively answer, Not to be less religious, that we may differ the less.   (source)
    negatively = telling what to avoid rather than what to do
  • A man that is clothed with negatives, thus argues: I am not such a drunkard as my landlord, such a thief as my tenant, such a rakish fellow, or a highwayman; No!   (source)
    negatives = expressing what is not--rather than what is
  • That he thought this would not be entire parting us, but we might love as friends all our days, and perhaps with more satisfaction than we should in the station we were now in, as things might happen; that he durst say, I could not apprehend anything from him as to betraying a secret, which could not but be the destruction of us both, if it came out; that he had but one question to ask of me that could lie in the way of it, and if that question was answered in the negative, he could not but think still it was the only step I could take.†   (source)
    negative = indicating an answer of "no"
  • I must own that I could not give a negative answer to this question, without first obliterating every impression which I have received with regard to the present genius of the people of America, the spirit which actuates the State legislatures, and the principles which are incorporated with the political character of every class of citizens I am unable to conceive that the people of America, in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will choose, and every second year repeat the choice of, sixty-five or a hundred men who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery.†   (source)
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negative as in:  a negative attitude

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  • I need a break from her negative attitude.
  • "The Earth is dying, you know? It's time to leave."
    "That's a pretty negative outlook," she said.   (source)
    negative = pessimistic (expecting bad things instead of good)
  • "I'm not being negative," I said. "I'm trying to be realistic."   (source)
    negative = pessimistic (focusing on bad things)
  • In the control room, Hammond said, "Damn those people. They are so negative."
    Wu said, "They're still going on about an animal escaping? I don't understand. They must have seen by now that we have everything under control."   (source)
    negative = pessimistic (expecting bad things instead of good)
  • Thomas was annoyed at Minho's constant negativity.   (source)
    negativity = pessimism or unpleasantness
  • When Lacy stepped into a delivery room, she felt poisonous, too negative to be the one to welcome another human being to this world.   (source)
    negative = pessimistic or disagreeable
  • He was reaching a point in life where the despair and negativity were threatening to take over his life.   (source)
    negativity = pessimism
  • Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. But when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst-case scenario.   (source)
    negatively = in a pessimistic manner
  • I don't know if it's just Janne's nature to be negative or if there's something more serious going on, if he's playing some sort of game.   (source)
    negative = pessimistic (expecting bad things instead of good)
  • I don't want anything heavy or sad. I'd like you to keep it light and snappy, something that will send the boys out feeling pretty good. Do you know what I mean? I don't want any of this Kingdom of God or Valley of Death stuff. That's all too negative.   (source)
    negative = unhappy (focusing on unhappy things instead of happy things)
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  • Jessica had one of those contagious smiles that made it really hard to be negative when she was so freaking bubbly.   (source)
    negative = pessimistic or disagreeable
  • She says it helps her channel the negative energy— whatever that means.   (source)
  • During the past year Blomkvist had often regretted that they had hired Dahlman, who had an enervating habit of looking at everything in as negative a light as possible.   (source)
    negative = pessimistic (expecting bad things instead of good)
  • "You're always so negative," she said.   (source)
    negative = pessimistic (focusing on bad things)
  • But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the trees and on the fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence.   (source)
  • Hated it so much, in fact, that she wouldn't even say she hated it. That would have been too negative.   (source)
    negative = pessimistic or disagreeable
  • With all the psychobabble she heard from her dad, she probably did think my constant negativity was part of an internal struggle.   (source)
    negativity = pessimism or unpleasantness
  • Jessica hated negativity.   (source)
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negative as in:  The test came back negative.

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  • The test for bacterial infection came back negative.
    negative = not having found the condition to be present
  • We tested for lead in the drinking water. The results came back negative.
    negative = did not find a substance to be present
  • But negative data's still data.   (source)
    negative = indicating that a condition was not found to be present
  • We tested ourselves, and we were negative.   (source)
  • Turning his attention back to the radar, he radioed, "Negative contact on proximity radar."   (source)
  • But the lump tested negative for syphilis, so he told Henrietta she'd better go to the Johns Hopkins gynecology clinic.   (source)
  • [of the lie-detector or polygraph test] The results of the test, to the dismay of Osprey's sheriff as well as Alvin Dewey, who does not believe in exceptional coincidences, were decisively negative.   (source)
  • "I'm not pregnant," she said. "I mean, I thought I was, but the test was negative."   (source)
  • At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute freedom quickly follows.   (source)
  • "Every negative worked in the same sort of profession," Az said.   (source)
    negative = people who did not have a condition
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  • Chapter 8 — Negative Data — 1969   (source)
    negative = indicating that a condition was not found to be present
  • What we have is negative data.   (source)
  • We ruled out blood type, gender, physical size, intelligence factors, genetic markers-nothing seemed to account for the negatives.   (source)
    negatives = people who did not have a condition
  • Az and I looked very closely at all the negatives-that is, the few pretties who didn't have the lesions-and tried to figure out why they were different.   (source)
  • All negatives.   (source)
  • Anyway, I'm glad it was negative.   (source)
    negative = did not find a condition or substance to be present
  • Results are often negative. We learn what something is not—and that is as important as a positive discovery to the man who is going to pick up from there. At least he knows what not to do.   (source)
    negative = indicating that something was not found
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negative as in:  a negative number

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  • She was absent when the teacher described the number line. It made it difficult for her to understand negative numbers.
    negative = less than zero
  • What math I was ever taught I learned doing the breakfast dishes and listening to Mother explain, over and over, what a fraction is or how to use negative numbers.   (source)
    negative = being less than zero
  • Operations on Real Numbers: negatives or opposites--numbers on opposite sides of the zero but the same distance from zero on the number line are called negatives or opposites   (source)
    negatives = numbers with a value of less than zero
  • In those cases, the comfort quotient became a negative number, and doing what came habitually actually detracted from happiness.   (source)
    negative = less than zero
  • There was a special news report on Channel 12 telling about how bad the weather was and Dad groaned when the guy said, "If you think it's cold now, wait until tonight, the temperature is expected to drop into record-low territory, possibly reaching the negative twenties!"   (source)
    negative = minus (what follows is below zero)
  • The girl freeze-out—today it was negative fifteen.   (source)
  • He sketched: Where x = time, and y = happiness, y = 0 beginning of relationship and breakup. y negative = breakup by m. and y positive = breakup by f: my relationship with K-19.   (source)
    negative = with a value less than zero
  • You don't have to have Archimedes talking about rabbits and turtles to know that: when you start in with negative numbers, as we do with young schoolchildren, you are singing like a Druid.   (source)
    negative = with a value of less than zero
  • Can a negative number be an average?   (source)
  • Algebra notes ... negative numbers have no sq root   (source)
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  • Positive numbers it the girl is more outgoing; negative if the guy is.   (source)
  • Positive numbers if the boy is more attracted to the girl; negative if vice versa.   (source)
  • A negative number if the boy is more of a Dumper; positive number if the girl is.   (source)
  • Assuming negative numbers if the guy is more of a Dumpee; positive if the girl is.   (source)
  • Which Colin arrived at by calculating the popularity difference between Person A and Person B on a scale of 1 to 1,000 (you can approximate) and then dividing by 75—positive numbers if the girl is more popular; negative if the guy is.   (source)
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • AB negative—it's rare and in very high demand.†   (source)
  • The book dealt only with a limited subject: the negative environmental effects of excessive pesticide use.†   (source)
  • Negative thoughts had a way of festering.†   (source)
  • Without exaggeration or fear of contradiction, the Count could answer his own question in the negative.†   (source)
  • In addition to later negative health consequences, the doctors found that constant stress can actually change the chemistry of a child's brain.†   (source)
  • I've tried not to be negative and tried not to judge others by how they look or what they say.†   (source)
  • We're entering the Land of the Dead, and I shouldn't think negative.†   (source)
  • Contemporary neurological, psychological, and sociological evidence has established that children are impaired by immature judgment, an underdeveloped capacity for self-regulation and responsibility, vulnerability to negative influences and outside pressures, and a lack of control over their own impulses and their environment.†   (source)
  • "Venturing into the more bizarre," Teabing said, "note that Jesus and His bride appear to be joined at the hip and are leaning away from one another as if to create this clearly delineated negative space between them."†   (source)
  • No way am I letting their negativity mess me up.†   (source)
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  • When he runs the wire from the negative side of the battery to the head of the screw, both the screw and the magnet start to spin.†   (source)
  • Power traveled from the drill line's positive lead, through the workbench, through the Mylar, through Pathfinder's hull, through a bunch of extremely sensitive and irreplaceable electronics, and out the negative lead of Pathfinder's power line.†   (source)
  • The most damning feature of the state's case was the negative test for gunshot residue on Danny's hands.†   (source)
  • Kabuo Miyamoto had been typed upon entering the service as O negative: he has an O negative blood type.†   (source)
  • Maybe that's why I don't calculate anything now I can only count in the negative space.†   (source)
  • You're a negative integer.†   (source)
  • And the answer was negative.†   (source)
  • Then there are the negatives: all the activity and attention gets in the way of my being able to do things that I want to do.†   (source)
  • You know, I don't believe any House has ever been in negative figures this early in the term: We haven't even started pudding.†   (source)
  • Our Religion Two class—and our Scripture class, too—was an atheistic mob; except for Owen Meany, we were such a negative, anti-everything bunch of morons that we thought Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were more interesting writers than Tolstoy.†   (source)
  • Learn to read the world and everyone in it like a photographic negative of reality.†   (source)
  • "You're not invisible in the ocean, dummy," Emma said, and it was true—a torso-shaped negative space bobbed in the water where he stood.†   (source)
  • This was followed by a crazed string of negatives: "No!†   (source)
  • Everything that went on in your life was thought to be due to some positive or negative power emanating from inside your head.†   (source)
  • I was supposed to match negatives with their prints, just look at the picture and look for the same one on the negative strip, put it in the envelope, and do the next one.†   (source)
  • Mr. Stetman asks if anyone can explain the wangdiddler's role in the negative hotchka theorem.†   (source)
  • That's a negative, sir.†   (source)
  • All negative.†   (source)
  • To have so much negative space?†   (source)
  • Negative on the bodies, sir.†   (source)
  • I was relaxed and personable, I was as thin as a rail, I did not indulge in self pity or negative thinking of any kind, I was an excellent salesman—everyone said so—and business was so good that what I spent on drugs, I scarcely missed.†   (source)
  • They are all blond and fair and I'm like their negative image, brown hair and dark eyes.†   (source)
  • Strips of negatives hang on drying lines.†   (source)
  • In my lifelong struggle to avoid becoming him, I'd developed an inability to demonstrate much negative emotion at all.†   (source)
  • Results of questioning: negative.†   (source)
  • You were negative nineteen years old.†   (source)
  • Then her interest had been negative.†   (source)
  • What the Cantos lacked in sales it made up for in negative reviews: "Indecipherable...archaic...irrelevant to all current concerns," said the Times Book Section.†   (source)
  • If it came back negative, Jenny would be crushed.†   (source)
  • Although it's negative, I finally have inspiration for my poem.†   (source)
  • Then she would look intently at the face of the person she had stopped, and on receiving an answer in the negative she would cry, 'No?' in disappointment.†   (source)
  • Immediately my mind responded with a resounding negative.†   (source)
  • The idea was to purge all the built-up bad feeling of winter from the populace (and to instruct them in right conduct toward thegods) so that no negativity would attach to the growing season and thereby endanger the harvest.†   (source)
  • San Francisco is well ahead of Los Angeles, too, and Villaraigosa doesn't suffer negative comparisons well.†   (source)
  • Denz Ay made a negative motion with her left hand.†   (source)
  • It won't have a negative affect on your eternity.†   (source)
  • But in those few seconds as it whirled blackly, dancing like negative motes of light, he remembered something from his childhood ...fifty years ago, or more.†   (source)
  • Each of us was hearing increasingly negative responses to her desire to do so.†   (source)
  • Talk about your negative campaigning.†   (source)
  • He was also opposed by humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam because they thought his view of man was far too negative; Luther had proclaimed that mankind was totally depraved after the Fall from Grace.†   (source)
  • He wrongly believed that light could kill cell cultures, so his laboratory looked like the photo negative of a Ku Klux Klan rally, where technicians worked in long black robes, heads covered in black hoods with small slits cut for their eyes.†   (source)
  • A page of the beverage section was devoted to the different types of blood they had on tap—to Clary's relief, they were different kinds of animal blood, rather than type A, type O, or type B-negative.†   (source)
  • It clearly pained him to dwell on the negative qualities of their opponents; he was by nature a positive man.†   (source)
  • The missile in any case had a sizable negative bouyancy, and the added mass in the nose tipped it over.†   (source)
  • In such an isolated site, surrounded by communes and fields, students would be protected from any negative influences from the city.†   (source)
  • As it turned out, no one had anything negative to say.†   (source)
  • And when we let Cain [the negative] win, we kill Abel [our sense of what's right].†   (source)
  • The word risk is a negative word in their vocabulary — it does not connote opportunity or excitement but rather the chance to waste money and time.†   (source)
  • A few words of encouragement can go a long way when the messages she's hearing all day are negative.†   (source)
  • Perhaps tomorrow, she told herself, she would take in the negative and have another one made, an eight-by-ten that she could set on her nightstand, the same way he had with Catherine's picture.†   (source)
  • There were old magazines and newspapers everywhere, piles of negatives on glass plates, broken furniture, but everything was kept free of dust by a diligent hand.†   (source)
  • But, would you believe, she still had the negative in a shoebox.†   (source)
  • I understand how you feel, but you must remain optimistic, for a negative outlook is more of a handicap than any physical injury.†   (source)
  • I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person I'd never seen before in my life.†   (source)
  • He was still being cautious, not wanting me to be injured or somehow stunt my growth or otherwise negatively impact the proper development of bones, tendons, and the like.†   (source)
  • Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end.†   (source)
  • A bright light shines through the broken windowpane in the garage door, and I peer in to see a body bent over the engine of a station wagon that is the match of Ellerby's from a negative universe.†   (source)
  • She had a negative made of the original, then ordered eight-by-tens and had those framed.†   (source)
  • I wasn't sure what would happen if I did, but I was filled with enough negative emotion that I just might do something I'd regret.†   (source)
  • As the negative press filtered back to him, the megalomaniacal leader turned a cold shoulder to the criticism and insulated his team as much as possible from the other expeditions.†   (source)
  • He forced himself to take several deep breaths, then took the negatives down and slipped Paul's X-rays beneath the clips.†   (source)
  • The first white-hot flash from her mind came and went so fast, I saw the scene like a photo negative.†   (source)
  • That is to say, Mrs Barnet, in all likelihood, made some sort of contribution to Lord Darlington's developing concern for the poor of our country and as such, her influence cannot be said to have been entirely negative.†   (source)
  • What was more important was that we didn't say anything negative.†   (source)
  • Air-raid sirens sounded again, this time so close to us that we were negatively affected, shaken to the point of avoiding each other's eyes as a way of denying that something unusual was going on.†   (source)
  • Some folks' polarities are negative, some positive.†   (source)
  • So on the first Saturday of October, after a week when Mr. McElroy had had enough of the Russian hordes and had probably run out of pinging filmstrips anyway and so we were now headed across the Great Wall into China, and a week when Mrs. Verne finally did call on me when I had my hand up and when I answered right —not to brag—that it was negative x and not negative y, and a week when I had snuck over to the Shirts team again and Coach Reed couldn't figure out why his platoon system wasn't working and how someone was pulling some funny business on him, I went over to the Marysville Free Public Library after my deliveries, ready to tell Mr. Powell that I had figured out how to give th†   (source)
  • All this publicity—negative publicity—isn't—won't—do us any good.†   (source)
  • The negative effects of working too many hours are easy to explain: when kids go to work, they are neither at home nor at school.†   (source)
  • Not only did it escalate her worry, it also infuriated her whenever the U.S. military was portrayed in a negative light.†   (source)
  • Listen to that negativity.†   (source)
  • He switched on the darkroom light and pulled the negatives out of the bath and held them up to the light.†   (source)
  • Farooq said that his personnel reviews were now highly negative, and that his police career was effectively over.†   (source)
  • What I want to end tonight is the old negative reputation of the Dark Daughters and Sons.†   (source)
  • I could make a huge list of all the negatives.†   (source)
  • I blame it on the evil Ximena Chin, who is negatively influencing you!†   (source)
  • As Daagoo thought about all of this, he became more doubtful with each negative thought.†   (source)
  • On the slightly more negative side, I was planning to make 150 frames this week—but so far I've only made three, and none of them looks like the one in the picture.†   (source)
  • "You pursue the negative," Willie-Jay had informed him once, in one of his lectures.†   (source)
  • It was the same thing I'd always been so annoyed with about Dexter, as well, but coming from Ted it sounded so small-minded, and negative.†   (source)
  • The trick was to observe everything and every person without becoming the object of anyone's negative attention.†   (source)
  • But I think it shows all the different ways we think about who we are ...umm ...and also about how the outside world imposes negative and positive elements on us.†   (source)
  • Pap rolled his head between his shoulders with a negative motion which intimated that it was not well.†   (source)
  • You didn't intend anything by it, sweetest; your use of 'didn't' and 'nothing' constitutes a double negative.†   (source)
  • In other problems we need to know whether these quantities are negative or positive.†   (source)
  • As a young adult writer, I hear often of the negative portrayals of parents in my genre, but I am convinced that YA has nothing on fairy tales for evil parents (see, e. g., Hansel and Gretel, Snow White).†   (source)
  • It is an interesting tale of light going to heavy or, as Parmenides would have it, positive going to negative.†   (source)
  • I think you don't need to have a negative airflow room and all that.†   (source)
  • According to the ECLS data, eight of the factors show a strong correlation—positive or negative—with test scores.†   (source)
  • I was deafened by that damn cannon they shot off after every touchdown in Mississippi, and strained to hear Bryant mumble out of his post-game press conferences to a small army of reporters who would cut their wrists before they would ever write one negative word about that old man or the institution he represented.†   (source)
  • I'm just being morbid and self-centered and paranoid and all the other negative self-serving stuff I don't want to be.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Nealon, not even service dogs are allowed onto this ward without a letter from the vet stating that the vaccinations are up to date and the stool's tested negative for parasites—†   (source)
  • Then came a five-minute segment of Lebanese news because the Shiite Moslems in Lebanon are a strong and violent faction backed by Iran, loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini and a three-minute wrap-up of world news, which meant some negative report about America.†   (source)
  • Our minutes in the visiting room were so precious, we could never bear to discuss anything difficult or negative.†   (source)
  • But he didn't get negative.†   (source)
  • When a day in trial went smoothly, he could always be counted on to see nothing but negatives.†   (source)
  • Now the many negative reports he has heard about Dallas are being confirmed.†   (source)
  • You might say they were the negatives for two other women I soon began to see almost every day and, in fact, saw more of for a while than I did my mother.†   (source)
  • He knows what to look for now: loss of appetite, sleeplessness, poor school performance—all negative, so far.†   (source)
  • E Clapper but there was no negative.†   (source)
  • Wherever Willoughby went, there followed axiomatically a coterie of passive, mostly negative characters known as the Courthouse Crowd, specimens Willoughby had put into the various county and municipal offices to do as they were told.†   (source)
  • You were too smart, Sharon, Eve thought, as the negative results flickered by.†   (source)
  • "Dad looked down, cast his eyes away, shook his head in the negative, but didn't say anything," she recalls.†   (source)
  • AB negative, he was certain.†   (source)
  • I read in a magazine that babies can sense negativity.†   (source)
  • He'd read equally negative accounts of the Balti before climbing K2 and wondered if the Wazir were similarly misunderstood.†   (source)
  • Not only white commentators but middle-class African Americans have often been as negative.†   (source)
  • But on the other hand (maybe I'm just being too negative) who knows, they might end up having a really amazing romance!†   (source)
  • He had broken into a waterman's emphatic negative.†   (source)
  • They would be negative, of course, or he wouldn't be leaving.†   (source)
  • He's invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir!†   (source)
  • You found the negative with only a number on it and right away you assumed the name of Jason Bourne.†   (source)
  • It is like looking at the negative of a photograph: Behind me is Spence; before me are the skeletal East Wing and, farther on, the woods.†   (source)
  • Many British businessmen and legislators believed, though, that a negative alteration of the American production system, such as an increase in labor costs brought about by the elimination of slavery, could make the British-controlled colonial growers more competitive and increase their market share worldwide.†   (source)
  • To counter such negative impressions, prominent business people launched an all-out public relations campaign.†   (source)
  • No. Any gram-negative infection, such as gono-coccus, meningeococcus, proteus, pseudomonas, salmonella, or shigella?†   (source)
  • My first reaction was negative; I did not think the time was ripe.†   (source)
  • She had time, she noticed as she took a quick glance at her watch, to fuss with the negatives a bit before he came back.†   (source)
  • The horse had tested negative for any trace of the drug.†   (source)
  • But if by 'brainwashing' you mean could I be compelled to surrender our secrets, the answer is an unmodified negative.†   (source)
  • People here react negatively to any overt displays of soulfulness.†   (source)
  • Back then, when she was raised, she was not allowed to talk about things that might appear to be negative.†   (source)
  • You must not question their right to your sacrifice, or the nature of their wishes and their needs: their right is conferred upon them by a negative, by the fact that they are 'non-you.'†   (source)
  • Well, you always seemed so ....so negative.†   (source)
  • The badness of it is publicized, and the negative publicity attracts more of the same through repetition and imitation.†   (source)
  • We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances.†   (source)
  • You pick up all the negative words.†   (source)
  • Negative, negative, negative.†   (source)
  • The prospect of continued negativeness stretching out ahead chafed him more than it did the rest of us.†   (source)
  • I will concentrate on my positive and not my negative, e.g., I will think less about my nose and more about my quite attractive teeth.†   (source)
  • He hadn't considered the possible negative side effects of having so many people looking up to him.†   (source)
  • In the dark negatives I could see Turtle's thin white bones and her skull, and it gave me the same chill Lou Ann must have felt to see her living mother's name carved on a gravestone.†   (source)
  • Positive and negative.†   (source)
  • I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church.†   (source)
  • Don't see one negative.†   (source)
  • They go to work and give their best to the outside world because they know if they're negative or griping or complaining, they might lose their job.†   (source)
  • I said I bet they cause trouble there at the schoolhouse, taking over, using double negatives.†   (source)
  • If we study them, it will remove any negative feelings about this clause in the federal Constitution.†   (source)
  • Since Earth has, essentially, little or no value to the Glatun Federation, we have a sufficiency of strategic metals, and there are negative aspects to both choices on our part, we must unfortunately state that we remain neutral in this dispute.†   (source)
  • These negative sentiments seem to have been stronger among soldiers from North Carolina than from any other state.†   (source)
  • Even after what he'd done earlier, and no matter how hurt and confused I was by it, I still had trouble seeing Derek in a negative light.†   (source)
  • I hear my parents telling me not to be negative, which is funny because I've always been the happy one.†   (source)
  • I grew up in a home where 1 was expected to go to college, and it didn't sound right for Zack to be so negative about going.†   (source)
  • Death is the ultimate negative.†   (source)
  • He represents the negative attitude, sir.†   (source)
  • Apart from the radioactive information gathered by John Osborne, they had learned nothing, unless it was the purely negative information that Cairns looked exactly as it always had before.†   (source)
  • It is primitive, negative and very stupid—but it is a viewpoint, it exists.†   (source)
  • "The negatives were in there," he said.†   (source)
  • Suddenly I knew I could not go back up to that room with its mottled mirror, its dead lightbulb and its blank negatives.†   (source)
  • What is it that—" But she shook her head again in a brisk, negative way, and lay her slender fingers on the back of my hand.†   (source)
  • Just this past summer, in some effects of my father's, I came across photographic negatives I'd never seen—even their size was different from all those he made of our family.†   (source)
  • But that was thinking negatively.†   (source)
  • But these were negative and unspectacular benefits, accepted and soon forgotten.†   (source)
  • He diagnosed this negative intelligence as more ominous than almost anything that could have happened, and determined to awaken General Hawker if it persisted.†   (source)
  • Hot Sulphur Springs, White Sulphur Springs, Black Sulphur Springs, No Sulphur Springs...Replies Negative.†   (source)
  • She had become adjusted, without knowing it, to his negative judging of a season by the standard of the debts he had not incurred.†   (source)
  • I hold them up to the light: everything that's white in the real picture is black in the negative.†   (source)
  • The raw-file printouts from the data banks de scribed in detail the facts and speculations that resulted in the negative evaluation of each individual.†   (source)
  • The king of Great Britain has an absolute negative on the acts of the two houses of Parliament.†   (source)
  • For this reason, in practice it may be more effective than an absolute negative.†   (source)
  • An absolute negative appears harsher than the stating of objections to be approved or disapproved by those to whom they are addressed.†   (source)
  • Carlisle, we have all that type O negative laid aside for Bella.†   (source)
  • Or where black is used as a positive and white is used as a negative?†   (source)
  • Langdon had been looking at the brand's negative!†   (source)
  • He was so stubbornly determined to dwell on the negative.†   (source)
  • I'd thought Rose's negative feelings would carry more conviction than that.†   (source)
  • There are so many people who are negative.†   (source)
  • They looked like chaotic negatives of random streaks and spirals.†   (source)
  • The negative side wiggled them slightly.†   (source)
  • Refer: negative results in Tape Series ORT, UDW.†   (source)
  • I am depressed ...I never wanted to be a negative person, or to be a crybaby.†   (source)
  • The word "Catholic" obviously had a negative connotation for Pastor Falk.†   (source)
  • Why would you ever let someone else's negative thoughts dictate how you're going to live your life?†   (source)
  • The Dallas was dead in the water, drifting slowly downward with her slight negative trim.†   (source)
  • She's using up all the O negative they stored for her.†   (source)
  • The wall was mottled, showing a pattern of alternating black and white patches on the negative.†   (source)
  • Not necessarily in a negative way—like "Why did this horrible thing have to happen to me?"†   (source)
  • A Clockwork Orange, on the other hand, provides a negative model.†   (source)
  • Yet I felt it was important to give her every negative fact.†   (source)
  • I checked Pathfinder's connections and the negative lead was no longer attached.†   (source)
  • "Allergy reactions are all negative," Jessica said.†   (source)
  • "A negative result has relatively little significance to me," said Dr. Burton.†   (source)
  • It's society that implants positives or negatives onto certain ideas.†   (source)
  • Their blank expressions left no need for a verbal negative.†   (source)
  • By the end of that week I had flashed endless smiles in response to negative deeds or words.†   (source)
  • He gave me a scrutinizing look that I decided wasn't all negative.†   (source)
  • It was just all negativity, all the time.†   (source)
  • A roll takes up about one page in a negative binder.†   (source)
  • The second major evidence of the Count's friendship was negative.†   (source)
  • But this form also has its negative aspect.†   (source)
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meaning too rare to warrant focus:

show 10 examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
  • I flipped through my notebook to the lecture on negative and positive liberty.   (source)
    negative = negative liberty is freedom from external obstacles or constraints
  • "The negative image of things blown together and then blown apart," he said. [of the shadows of the branches intersecting and coming apart on the concrete]   (source)
    negative = as of a photographic image that makes light things dark and dark things light
  • After she'd made the prints, she slipped the negative into her handbag and took it home with her.   (source)
    negative = photographic material with the image taken by a film camera and which can be used to create photographs
  • Instinctively, unless our high-school English teachers crouch over our shoulders, most Americans naturally say It's me, not It is I, they split infinitives, many use double negatives, and they end sentences with prepositions.   (source)
    negatives = indicating "no" or "not"; e.g., I didn't tell nobody.
  • "Negative liberty," he said, "is the freedom from external obstacles or constraints."   (source)
    negative = negative liberty is freedom from external obstacles or constraints
  • "I made some prints," she said. "When I was working at Elwood Murray's. I've got the negative too."   (source)
    negative = photographic material with the image taken by a film camera and which can be used to create photographs
  • He hadn't found out about the purloined negative yet, however.   (source)
  • What she really said was that she wanted to learn how to make photographic prints from negatives.   (source)
    negatives = photographic material with the images taken by a film camera and which can be used to create photographs
  • I apologize for the double negative, but it's a real double negative of a situation, a bind from which negating the negation is truly the only escape.   (source)
    negative = a grammatical construct that means "not"
  • Elwood Murray had let it be known that he could have printed a better picture from the negative, but when he went to look, the negative was gone.   (source)
    negative = photographic material with the image taken by a film camera and which can be used to create photographs
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show 3 more examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
  • His negatives were placed in glassine envelopes, filed according to the date on which they'd been taken, so it was easy for Laura to locate the negative of the picnic shot.   (source)
  • His negatives were placed in glassine envelopes, filed according to the date on which they'd been taken, so it was easy for Laura to locate the negative of the picnic shot.   (source)
    negatives = photographic material with the images taken by a film camera and which can be used to create photographs
  • When the issue is viewed another way, as with the effort to find an accent without regional identifiers, most linguists see a bottom-line standard in written American English as the absence of certain grammatical constructions, or "nonstandard" forms such as ain't, double negatives, and subject-verb disagreement.   (source)
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