All 9 Uses of

negative
in
Do You Speak American?

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."
Chpt 2 *

negative = saying "no"

So that aspect of Southern speech has done a lot to, not do away with the character-—there's still very strong negative caricatures—but that's done away with it a bit.
Chpt 4

negative = bad

These negative attitudes find their focus in attacks on minority languages, which are all too obviously badges of ethnicity.
Chpt 5 *

negative = bad or harmful

Women have taken a term that had a negative connotation and made it positive.
Chpt 7

negative = bad

Not only white commentators but middle-class African Americans have often been as negative.†
Chpt 6

Since it turns out that people respond similarly to computer-simulated faces and real people, they react negatively when their expectations are crossed.†
Chpt 8

That may even produce more tolerance and appreciation of the linguistic diversity of this country, and less negative stereotyping of some dialects (such as New York or Southern) as "bad English."†
Chpt 8

Uses with a meaning too rare to warrant foucs:

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.
Chpt 1 *

negatives = indicating "no" or "not"; e.g., I didn't tell nobody.

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.
Chpt 3

Definitions:

(1) (negative as in: had a negative effect)
bad or harmful
(2) (negative as in: negative feedback from customers)
to express criticism or disagreement, or (especially when talking over a radio or in a military setting) to say "no"
(3) (negative as in: a negative attitude)
pessimistic (emphasizing bad things) or disagreeable
(4) (negative as in: The test came back negative.)
did not find a condition or substance to be present
(5) (negative as in: a negative number)
less than zero
(6) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

See a comprehensive dictionary for less common meanings of negative including some in the fields of electricity, physics, chemistry, medicine, photography, and grammar. Note that most non-technical senses of negative indicate that something is bad or lacking.