1.
a. Expressing, containing, or consisting of a negation, refusal, or denial: gave a negative answer to our request for funding. b. Indicating opposition or resistance: a negative reaction to the new advertising campaign.
2. Having no positive features: negative ideas; a negative outlook on life.
3. Marked by or exhibiting features, such as hostility, that cannot be deemed positive or constructive: conducted a negative campaign against his opponent.
4. Medicine. Not indicating the presence of microorganisms, disease, or a specific condition.
5. Logic. Designating a proposition that denies agreement between a subject and its predicate.
6. Mathematics. a. Relating to or designating a quantity less than zero. b. Relating to or designating the sign (-). c. Relating to or designating a quantity to be subtracted from another. d. Relating to or designating a quantity, a number, an angle, a velocity, or a direction in a sense opposite to another of the same magnitude indicated or understood to be positive.
7. Physics. a. Relating to or designating an electric charge of the same sign as that of an electron, indicated by the symbol (-). b. Relating to or designating a body having an excess of electrons.
8. Chemistry. Of or designating an ion, the anion, that is attracted to a positive electrode.
9. Biology. Moving or turning away from a stimulus, such as light: a negative tropism.